The Department of Basic Education's (DBE's) Web site has been hacked with some messages from the terrorist organisation, ISIS.
In a statement issued yesterday, the department said: "A short while ago, we discovered that the department's Web site has been hacked. The people who breached the Web site have since posted gory pictures of decapitated corpses, some of them are children."
The DBE is one of the departments of the South African government. It oversees primary and secondary education in the country.
The Web site was still down this morning at the time of publishing.
According to the department, the message posted by the hackers is as follows: "Hacked by Team System DZ. A message to the government, the American people and the rest of the world. Is this the humanity that you claim, or is life irrelevant to Muslims? Do not imagine that these actions against Muslims will pass you and we will forget what you did to the Arab and Muslim peoples all over the world. I love Islamic State."
This week, US government Web sites, many of them in Ohio, were also hacked with a message that purported to be supportive of the Islamic State terrorist group.
A message posted on the Web site of Republican Ohio Govenor John Kasich said: "You will be held accountable Trump, you and all your people for every drop of blood flowing in Muslim countries." The message, left by "Team System DZ, also ended, "I love the Islamic state."
In its statement, the DBE says: "We distance ourselves from the brutal images that depict hatred and violence. We have taken immediate steps to have the images removed from our Web site and to investigate how the Web site has been hacked. In this regard, we have contacted the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) that is responsible for security system to deal with the hacking as a matter of urgency.
"We are currently working together with SITA to deal with the hack and reclaim our Web site. We condemn such acts in the strongest terms. In the meantime, we appeal to members of the public to be patient with us as we have since taken down the Web site while working to restore it. An investigation is underway to establish the source of the hack."
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