By Shaun Smillie
Zimbabwe’s state-owned websites are again in the crosshairs of a hacktivist group, which is using Ddos attacks to make a point.
Image by: Thinkstock
On Friday, Anonymous Africa claimed to have attacked state-run newspaper the Zimbabwe Herald. A day before, they temporarily shut down the Africa Global news website, claiming it was racist.
“herald.co.zw is Tango Down! #anon #anonops For supporting the dictatorship of the tyrant and murderer Mugabe,” Anonymous Africa tweeted, under their handle Zim4thewin.
The paper did not confirm that it had been Ddos attacked, although it has been the focus of cyber attacks by the group before.
In 2013, when Anonymous Africa first began running Ddos attacks in Zimbabwe, the Minister of State Security, Sydney Sekeramayi, said the country had to prepare for future cyber attacks and identify their country of origin.
Speaking to The Times via e-mail, Anonymous Africa said it had been training activists in Zimbabwe, and that it appeared at least one of them was being monitored by security forces.
“The activist noticed that SSL certificates to popular websites like Gmail and Facebook were no longer matching or secure. We are not sure who it was or how much they know, but it appears someone was monitoring the activist,” it said.
“Some networks like the Zim military networks or the Zanu-PF website have not changed one bit since we last trained [attacked] them. We will be visiting them all again in this campaign.”
Ddos attacks usually do not damage a website but rather overwhelm a server with traffic, denying visitors access. TimesLive.co.za
