South African political party the Democratic Alliance (DA) says its website has not been hacked, after a 'spoof' hacker claimed that it had targeted the party's website.
Early this morning, the ANC website was attacked by hackers calling themselves ‘Anonymous Africa’. This hacker group said it targeted the ANC because of the South African ruling party’s support for Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF.
However, a Twitter account going by the name ‘Opposite Reaction’ said it had targeted http://www.da.org.za. But Opposite Reaction's Twitter page has since been deleted.
A screenshot illustrating the downtime of the DA website is pictured above - but this may not point to downtime as a result of a hack.
An Apache server message on the website reads, “The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.”
Earlier in the day, the DA website has been intermittently working.
The executive director of communications for the DA, Gavin Davis, says that the DA website has not been hacked.
“I have checked with our web developers and they confirmed that the site has not been hacked,” Davis told ITWeb Africa.
“The http address (da.org.za) has simply not been re-directed to the www address. We have requested them to rectify this,” Davis said.
The DA's direct marketing director, Andre Bothma, also says that the DA website has not been hacked.
"The site’s not been hacked, although some slow loading was detected this morning," Bothma told ITWeb Africa.
"It’s being investigated and we’re expecting feedback, but it is confirmed that it has not been hacked," Bothma said.
The group 'Opposite reaction', though, claims it has hit the DA website.
“Tango Down DA.org.za I am in the Anonymous Africa Team!!” read a tweet from Opposite Reaction.
Anonymous Africa, however, has distanced itself from Opposite Reaction.
“@Not4TheWin not4thewin is a troll and pretending to be anonafrica. no evidence of da.org.za supporting mugabe,” Anonymous Africa told ITWeb Africa.
“Our targets are corrupt politicians, and especially those who support (Robert) Mugabe, not random political parties,” Anonymous Africa added.
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