Gay Activist Hacks Nigerian Government’s Website Over Country’s Anti-Gay Law
Friday, July 5, 2013
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An Irish hacker,
angered by Nigeria’s stance on homosexuality, has attacked Nigeria’s official
government website in an attempt to coerce President Goodluck Jonathan to veto
a bill seeking to jail homosexuals.
The attack
happened on Thursday night and normalcy only returned to the site at about
11.00 p.m. on Thursday. It is not known whether it was the government that
regained control or whether the attackers simply suspended the attack.
The anti-gay bill,
passed by Nigeria’s National Assembly and generously supported by Nigerians,
seeks to jail convicted homosexuals for 14 years.
“Nobody should
live in fear of being jailed, when their only action is loving another
consenting adult, regardless of gender,” the Irish hacker, Paddyhack said.
A message left on
the defaced website gave the president 72 hours to “renounce and veto this
Bill…”
“Failure to follow
our order will unleash a torrent of fury aimed directly at the direction of
your administration, starting with some startling but unsurprising evidence of
corruption in your ranks,”the hacker, who also claims to be a member of the
global Anonymous group, said.
“No need to start
destroying evidence. I already have it,” the hacker declared.
The hacked
website, Nigeria.gov.ng, is
Nigeria’s official website. It is the equivalent of UK’s gov.uk and U.S’ USA.gov. It is managed by
Nigeria’s information ministry.
The Thursday night
attack was a continuation of an #opNigeria the attacker launched on July 1.
Despite announcing his intention hours before hijacking the website, Nigeria’s
Information Ministry’s web administrators appear unable to avert the attack.
“Just over two
hours to launch of #OpNigeria,”
the attacker announced in his twitter diary.
The spokesperson
of the ministry, Joseph Mutuah, could not explain the attacks when pressed for
reasons the government is unable to provide appropriate security for its web
infrastructure.
He likened it to
armed robbers breaking into one’s property. “They are hackers,” he said.
The ICT department
of the Information Ministry received N63.5 million from the national
treasury this year. Of this amount, N10 million was set aside for the
management of the website.
Nigeria
cyber protest culture
Although the web
profile of the attack suggests Irish origins, it is difficult to isolate the
incident from Nigeria’s growing culture of cyber activism.
Cyber warfare is
fast becoming a major protest tool for Nigeria’s social media community.
Besides using the Internet to disseminate information, protesters use hacking
skills to get government officials’ attention to civil issues.
After playing a
major role in the global Occupy Movement, the Internet anarchy group, called
Anarchy, is lending support to clones in developing countries, including
Nigeria.
Various clones
operating in Nigeria have carried out operations against government Internet
infrastructures as a means of protesting unfavourable policies, mostly as
support for a protest in the social media community.
Early in January
2012, during the Occupy Nigeria protest, Nigeria Cyber Hack-activists, the lead
clone of Anonymous, began a “Tell Them How You Feel” campaign. The group
bombarded mobile phone lines of Nigerian politicians, lawmakers and top
government functionaries – including the Vice president – with a million text
messages each.
Thereafter, these
phone numbers were published by the group on social media, inviting Nigerians
to call or text them to denounce the policy.
Nigeria Cyber
Hack-activist, believed to be made up of mostly young people, have been
carrying out attacks on government Internet infrastructure since 2010. It was a
means of protesting the lavish expenditure of the government on Nigeria’s 50th
anniversary – in the face of worsening poverty and infrastructure decay. The
group launched attacks that crippled many government websites.
The group has a
history of defacing government websites. In May 2011, they ruined several
government websites, including the National Assembly’s, in a campaign –
Op-Nigeria – targeted at forcing government to cut waste and sign the Freedom
of Information Act.
After the Occupy
Nigeria protest, Nigeria Cyber Hack-activists announced it was planning an
attack on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s website in a bid to
push the anti-corruption commission into arresting Messrs Femi Otedola and Mike
Adenuga, earlier fingered as members of a cabal that have fuelled corruption
within the oil industry.
But a day before
the group’s planned attack, the EFCC website was brought down.
No other group
claimed responsibility for the attack.
The unannounced
attack on EFCC’s website suggested there were other hack groups operating in
Nigeria.
In 2012 alone, up
to eight hack groups, with focused operations on Nigeria, sprang up in the
cyberspace – including Anonymous Nigeria, Ibomhacktivist, and the Op-Arik –
used to taunt Arik Air, Nigeria’s leading airline, for poor customer services.
The radical,
faceless, and irrepressible groups threatened to upload stuxnet – a deadly
computer worm discovered in 2010 – on Shell flow station in the oil rich Niger
Delta after the government threatened them with treason and arrests.
They warned that
Nigeria’s cyber infrastructure was insecure and would overthrow it if the
government does not meet their demands to stop corruption and political
patronage in Nigeria, cut waste in governance, and prosecute members of the
cabal.
Although the Nigerian
government is yet to meet these conditions, the hackers have since gone under,
remaining silent even on the latest attacks. It is now unclear whether the
latest vandalization of Nigeria’s cyber infrastructure is being carried out by
them or foreign cyber-warlords.
Source:
Premium Times
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