THE Voice of America (VOA) website was attacked by Iranian hackers on Monday, disabling its internet news service to more than 30 countries, including Zimbabwe.
VOA’s main website, www.voanews.com, which houses the Studio 7 website dedicated to Zimbabwe, displayed a message on a blue screen, and under a logo of an outfit known as the Iranian Cyber Army, proclaiming: “We have proven that we can.”
VOA is funded by the US State Department, and the hackers appeared to send a direct message to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Mrs. Clinton,” it said, “do you want to hear the voice of oppressed nations will (sic) from heart of USA? Islamic world doesn’t believe USA trickery.”
The attack began just before 2PM EST and the website had not been restored at 6PM EST.
The hackers listed 93 domain names owned by the Voice of America, including www.studio7news.com for Zimbabwe, which they said had also been hacked.
VOA runs news services dedicated to more than 30 countries which include Indonesia, Somalia, Cambodia and a Persian service which covers Iran.
In 2009, the Iranian Cyber Army disabled the Twitter website for close to an hour.
They replaced the website’s welcoming screen with an image of a green flag and the caption: “This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army.”
Arabic writing in blue said, “Hezbollah is victorious,” and a message on the flag said, “Ya Hussein,” referring to Prophet Mohammed’s grandson.