South African news website forced offline by hackers

The website of the Mail & Guardian, a weekly South African newspaper, has been shut down following an attack by hackers.

A message posted on the popular news website explained the downtime to internet visitors:

The Mail & Guardian’s website is under sustained attack by hackers. We are dealing with the problem, but to make absolutely sure that your security isn’t compromised, we have decided to suspend the service temporarily. It’s a drastic measure, but we really don’t want to take any chances with security. We apologise for this interruption of service. We’ll be back as soon as we have made certain that the problem has been effectively dealt with. We’ll continue to update you as soon as we have news.

Nic Dawes, the editor of the Mail & Guardian, said on Twitter that the attacks originated in Russia and that because of the attack the site had been taken offline to protect users…

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.