Sudan Security-linked Website Hacked Again

KHARTOUM – For the second time in a month, hackers have attacked a Sudanese website close to the country’s powerful security apparatus, AFP learned on Thursday.

The website of the Sudanese Media Centre (SMC), http://smc.sd, was inaccessible and carried the message: “hacked again by 7r9 al7dod”.

There was no further information. SMC had only resumed its service over the past few days after the first rare cyber-assault on July 11. At that time, SMC’s website said it had been “hacked by the Border Guards”.

It included a link, www.sudaht.com, to a page for “Sudan Hack Team”. Other than a photograph of riot policemen, the website had no further content and said a forum was under construction.

SMC carries articles about political and security events in Sudan, an impoverished country ravaged by war in the Darfur region, South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

Sudanese journalists regularly complain of censorship by the country’s National Intelligence and Security Service, which has also been accused of rights abuses.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders named Sudan as one of its “Enemies of the Internet” this year.

It said the National Telecommunication Corporation, a regulatory body, has an Internet control unit to decide what content should be accessible.