Anonymous targets South Africa’s national broadcaster
South Africa’s national broadcaster, SABC, saw its sites downed on 12 June. Anonymous Africa subsequently claimed responsibility for the cyber attack, revealing that it had targeted SABC in retaliation for the broadcaster’s decision to censor news coverage of recent protests. The group announced on 11 June that it was planning to target the broadcaster, and began the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack at lunchtime the next day. It warned of further attacks, suggesting that: “Things are going to get wild”.

SABC restored after cyber attack

The SABC’s websites were still down after 4pm on Sunday after the hacktivist group that launched a massive cyber attack on the national broadcaster‚ Anonymous Africa‚ said it had halted the attack‚ prompting it to tweet: “SABC are still offline. I think someone broke something trying to fix what was happening.” However‚ the sites all appeared to be back up by 4.30pm.The hacktivist group earlier said that it would halt the attack at 4pm but warned that it was not done yet and that there was “lots of action coming”.“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‚” Anonymous Africa‚ which claimed responsibility for the cyber attack‚ said on Twitter.The group said the attack was in retaliation for the national broadcaster’s decision to censor news coverage of protests.Just after 4pm Anonymous Africa tweeted” “We have stopped (for now) training SABC. We are not done yet. A lot more needs to be exposed and talked about.”Just before 4pm‚ it tweeted: “Less than 5 min and you can have all your websites back. At SABC_COO Do not forget. Harder you push‚ harder we push back. We are legion.”This was preceded with: “Everytime @SABC_COO censor the SABC more‚ we are going to come back‚ and keep hitting harder until @SABC_COO can not get up again!”This was an obvious reference to SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng‚ who apparently took the decision to outlaw the broadcaster’s news coverage of protests.“The SABC going to censor South Africa? They going to be thunderstruck‚” the hacktivists warned on Twitter.The SABC sites went down at around lunch time on Sunday‚ including its news site and the SAFM‚ 5FM sites.The hacktivists said in on Twitter: “Attacks against all SABC entities now underway. SA experiencing largest ddost attack. All SABC stations down.”Anonymous Africa had warned about the cyber attack in a tweet on Saturday.“Journalists if you are bored. Tomorrow at around lunch time the SABC will be on the receiving end of largest dDos attack to hit SA ever‚” it said on Twitter.Meanwhile‚ SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago was quoted on Sunday afternoon as saying that the broadcaster was still looking into the alleged cyber attack.“I need to check with the head of IT‚” Kganyago told Fin24 when he was contacted for comment on Sunday afternoon.Anonymous Africa is also alleged to have hacked and taken down the website of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in the early hours of Sunday‚ but this could not immediately be confirmed...