A website belonging to the only private daily newspaper in Botswana, Mmegi, was hacked on 22 January 2015 and deleted by unknown culprits. The newspaper realised their website had been deleted around 10am in the morning.
Tlhalefang Charles, a reporter and new-media coordinator at Mmegi, told MISA Botswana that they suspect hackers want to intimidate and delay their business.
“Even though it is not clear who these hackers are, they definitely are coming after us because our website was hacked again about 10 days ago,” he said.
Charles told MISA Botswana that the media house engaged developers to work on the security of the website and managed to get the website online again the next day, though they are still working on restoring lost information.
Meanwhile, MISA Botswana chairperson Modise Maphanyane says hacking a newspaper website is an affront on freedom of expression.
“If this hacking continues to happen to a newspaper which is considered a strong critic of corruption then we consider this not a small hacking problem but a very serious problem,” Maphanyane said.
MISA Botswana encourages the media house to acquire assistance in investigating the situation.
For queries or comments, please contact:
MISA Botswana National Director
Buyani Zongwani
Tel: 3971972
Email: director@bw.misa.org
