into the Zimbabwe government website (http://www.gta.gov.zw) and taken
material on “everything” there is to know about the government’s internet
database.
The government website has information on official reports, national
policies, official speeches and the country’s constitution. It also has
information on the economy, taxation and labour laws, among other data. Most
importantly it serves as a link to the websites for the different ministries
that make up the government.
On Wednesday, IT expert Douglas Siwira told SW Radio Africa that the hacking
will leave the government portal severely compromised. He said the hackers
will have taken things like administrator passwords and be able to alter
anything they want on the site, if they choose to. In another countries
government websites usually contain social security numbers and similar
confidential information.
On Tuesday LulzSec posted several files online, including in some cases
passwords and database files, which it said were from the governments of
Brazil, Australia, Anguilla and Zimbabwe. The campaign by LulzSec, which has
been dubbed “AntiSec”, targets governments that engage in corruption and
censorship.
The group criticized Mugabe for his repressive regime and said its campaign
actually started by targeting the Zimbabwe government “userbase” which it
described as "rather small." Also taken from the portal were a “set of
e-mail credentials.” These files have since been uploaded to file-sharing
websites like Pirate Bay, Mega Upload and others.
A statement released by the group said; “We provide material that is
primarily against corrupt Governments (in our world this is all Governments)
and corrupt companies. In this release you will find network data for the
Governments of Zimbabwe, Australia, Anguilla (a British overseas territory
in the Caribbean) as well as internal information about companies like
Universal and Viacom.”
There is speculation that LulzSec is affiliated to the larger hacking group
known as Anonymous. In January this year Anonymous hacked into the Zimbabwe
government website in retaliation, after the First Lady Grace Mugabe sued
the Standard newspaper over a WikiLeaks story alleging she was benefiting
from the illegal trading of diamonds from Chiadzwa.
At the time Anonymous said on its website that it was targeting Mugabe and
his regime “who have outlawed the free press and threaten to sue anyone
publishing WikiLeaks.” At that time the Zimbabwean government website was
unavailable for over a week, and the finance ministry website displayed a
message saying it was under maintenance.
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