A Twitter account belonging to a hacktivist group dubbed Anonymous Africa claimed responsibility for the downtime of the SABC websites. The hacker targeted the DDoS attacks at the websites for SABC’s main TV channel, but also the 5FM and SAFM radio stations.
— Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2016 The attacks begun at noon on Sunday and stopped four hours later after bringing down all Web-related services.
— Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2016 The hacker announced its intentions to carry out the attacks on Twitter, on the night between Saturday and Sunday, about nine hours before they started. Anonymous Africa in a series of tweets on Sunday, said it was carrying out the alleged attack in light of allegations of censorship at the SABC. SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng has blocked the broadcaster from showing burning of public property in a move to discourage vandalism while he has further driven a controversial ‘good news’ policy. The censorship charges arised after anti-government protests in South Africa that turned violent. It’s after these protests that SABC took its decision, and also urged private TV stations to stand in solidarity. In statements to South African tech news site Fin24, an SABC representative called the attackers “cowards” for attacking a “national key-point.”
— Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2016 In the meantime, Anonymous Africa, which claims links to global hacktivist group Anonymous has promised more cyberattacks against the SABC.
— Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2016 “We will stop the attacks at SABC (for now) at 4pm. We are not done yet, lots of action coming. Things are going to get wild!” tweeted the group on Sunday.
