14 DAY TRIAL // A hacker using the Anonymous Africa name on Twitter was behind a series of DDoS attacks against the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), the country's official state-sponsored broadcaster.
The hacker aimed the DDoS attacks at the websites for SABC's main TV channel, but also the 5FM and SAFM radio stations.
The attacks started at noon on Sunday and stopped four hours later, after bringing down all Web-related services.
The hacker pre-announced his attacks a few hours earlier
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.
In a tweet posted before the attack began, the hacker tweeted a link from an Al Jazeera report that accused SABC of censorship after the public broadcaster announced it would stop showing scenes of violent protests in a move to discourage vandalism of public property.
The censorship accusations arose 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. The hacker did not respond to Softpedia's additional inquiries in time for publication.
SABC: Anonymous are cowards
In statements to South African tech news site Fin24, an SABC representative, called the attackers "cowards" for attacking a "national key-point."
The hacker is now running a poll on Twitter on whether to launch future DDoS attacks on the TV station's websites. At the time of writing, from 338 votes, 85 percent have voted Yes.
Before attacking SABC, the hacker also launched DDoS attacks against various websites associated with EFF (Economic Freedom Fighter), a black nationalist and socialist political party in South Africa that's known for its anti-white people propaganda. EFF has accused the white South African minority of owning most of the country's property and promised to expropriate it and redistribute the land to the black majority.
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 — Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2016
Attacks against all SABC entities now underway. SA experiencing largest ddost attack. All SABC stations are #TangoDown — Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2016
The SABC is still #TangoDown! This includes #SAFM & #5FM web assets. — 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! — Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2016
Every time @SABC_COO censor the SABC more, we are going to come back, and keep hitting harder until @SABC_COO can not get up again. #Anonops — Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2016
SABC are still offline, I think someone broke something trying to fix what was happening #oops — Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2016
The ddos protests gets lots of public support. Hlaudi @SABC_COO - We are not on the wrong side of history. You are. We are coming for you — Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2016