Hackers have claimed the scalp of the South African Ministry of State Security’s Twitter account, underlining concerns that Africa may be the soft underbelly of global cyber security.
As part of what was described as a large-scale attack spammers hijacked the @StateSecurityRS account to advertise a “miracle diet” before officials were able to change the password and regain control.
“Necessary security measures have been put in place to avert similar occurrences,” State Security Spokesperson Brian Dube told reporters.
While many South African users of the social media network reacted with amusement, cyber security officials fear the next high profile attack on an African government will not be so harmless.
“It wouldn’t be hard to shut down the government. There’s very little in place, so even the most basic of attacks, in most cases, get through,” said Craig Rosewarne, founder of the South African based consulting firm Wolfpack Information Risk.
With funding from the British government, Rosewarne’s consulting group recently published a much-heralded threat analysis on the continent.
According to the report, most developing African nations have been either unwilling or unable to secure their rapidly expanding online networks and infrastructures.
South Africa is a particular source of frustration.
Rosewarne’s analysis found that corruption is driving a proliferation of digital crimes throughout the country.
“We’ve delayed so much that other African countries have actually overtaken us,” he told media.
Over the past few years, hundreds of criminal syndicates have taken advantage of lax cyber security to launch relatively unsophisticated attacks, often using government or business insiders to exploit vulnerable networks.
It is estimated that cyber crimes resulted in 2.65 billion rand ($291 million) in damages and losses across South Africa in 2011, the last year reliable figures were published.
“While we’re seeing a huge surge in financially motivated crimes, we’re also seeing an upswing in hacktivism,” Rosewarne said. “And that’s where you’ll get the scary guys – the guys that will go full out to make it happen.”
The most ambitious of these homegrown hacking collectives is Team GhostShell.
AFP
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