Mmegi attacked

| Friday January 23, 2015 20:00

 

On Thursday morning, just after 10am, hackers defaced the website and later brought it down and placed the picture of cancer patient, Abian Ntshabele on her hospital bed.

Below the picture was a message urging people to save Abbie’s life by praying for her and offering donations. The hacker also provided two banking details of Abian Ntshabele and Tiny Lerato Ntshabele but Mmegi could not authenticate the details.

The hackers, who identified themselves as ‘13gion’ also left Mmegi a rather rude message saying: “HACKED & DEFACED secure your website so tight that no one even the smallest ant can enter your private room again. See you! WE UNITE AS ONE BUT FIGHT AS TO MANY (sic).”

According to the MmegiOnline developers, this was by far the most destructive attack in the 12-year history of the website.

Garai Makaya of LifeMedia said: “The hackers have deleted the website trashing its 12-year old archives”. He said it would take about a week to get all the backups in place.

“The website has thousands of files making up all the Mmegi and The Monitor stories that have been published in the past 12 years, so it would take about a week or even more to get them back from our back-up,” said Makaya.

Makaya also said that no site is 100% secure from persistent and sophisticated hackers. “Although the hackers played the Robin Hood gimmick by defacing the site with cancer patient Abbie’s banking details, the hacking was done by what we call ‘black hat hackers’, whose aim is to hurt and destroy but not to alert of security breaches as is the case with ‘white hat hackers,” explained Makaya.

Ten days prior to the latest attack, hackers who identified themselves as ‘Net WezzyF BW Hackers’ defaced MmegiOnline. The hackers however did not cause much damage as compared to the latest attack.

According to the developers it was not clear whether the two hackers were related or just partners in crime.

 

Attack from Botswana

Thalefang Charles, the new media coordinator at Mmegi, says initial investigations have revealed that the attacks were elements from Botswana. “Although their identities are not yet established, we believe they are enemies of the truth who are against Mmegi’s recent exposés of graft and wrongdoings,” he said.

“We also suspect that since we are in possession of some damning video and audio materials related to the investigation of the spy chief Isaac Kgosi, (of which some have since been published by Mmegi) someone might be of the view that the videos would be posted on the website,” said Charles.

Charles also noted that they did not rule out the fact that hacking has been trending lately worldwide, giving examples of North Korea hacks on Sony over the film that the North Koreans disliked.

He said since these attacks made international headlines and trended on social media, this could have sparked some local copycats to hack Botswana’s busiest website.

Mmegi editor, Ntibinyane Ntibinyane said the recent hacking is not only a direct attack on freedom of the press but an act of sabotage and intimidation.

“This is a clear act of intimidation by those who hate the truth and despise the journalism profession. We won’t cave into intimidation and we are working around the clock to ensure that the website is up and running as soon as possible. ” 

 

MISA worried

The national director of Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Botswana Buyani Zongwane said the organisation was worried about the latest attack on MmegiOline by the hackers.

He said: “It is worrying that someone could go all out to hack and delete a rich information resource like Mmegi website. As MISA, we view this as not only aimed at hurting Mmegi but also as trampling on freedom of expression by the perpetrators”.

Zongwane said since this was a second attempt in a space of two weeks, the hackers appear to be on assignment with instructions to hurt the media.

He said this could be the rollout strategy of the leaked statement made by the Vice President Mokgweetsi Masisi last year when he told a private meeting of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) members that they will open anonymous accounts on social media to attack opponents.

He said since Mmegi has lately been publishing disturbing details of the spy world, the Directorate of Intelligence and Security agents could not be ruled out as suspects in this cowardly act.

He cautioned all media organisations to invest in the security of their websites.

 

The busiest website in Botswana

MmegiOnline is the most visited news website in Botswana and one of the leading news sources in the region. Google Analytics says Mmegi receives an average of 40,000 pageviews everyday and over a million monthly visits from around the world.

Over 100,000 unique visitors across the world - most of whom are from Botswana, rely on the website for news and current affairs monthly.

Since it is updated everyday with fresh news, Mmegi has become the leading news source in Botswana. It has 12 years of quality news archives. Google indexes it on live basis, which means that anything published in the Mmegi website could be found by Google Search within minutes.

The archives from the group’s daily publications since 2003 have become a very important source for researchers and students around the world. Most international wire organisations receive Botswana news from Mmegi website.

Mmegi has embraced technological advances and moved with the times by pioneering the digital reporting in Botswana. The company has invested into digital platforms to bring the readers ‘news you need to know daily’. The Mmegi website was linked with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to share news. MmegiOnline is also a business model that brings revenue to the organisation. Most local companies that have embraced Internet advertising have pushed their products and services through the Mmegi website.