Zimbabwe: Mugabe and 'Despicable Me' - Porn, Pirated Movies Posted On Zanu-PF Website

[grimm]

President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party had its website hacked and pirated movies and pornographic pictures posted on it, reports say.

The hack on Tuesday appears to have gone undetected for some time, according to news and blogging website Techzim.

Pirated animated movies like Despicable Me 3 and Cars 3 were loaded under the Zanu-PF website's publication section, and pornographic pictures were also posted.

Specific attack?

The website was eventually taken down on Tuesday evening and repaired. By Wednesday afternoon, most of its features were back up and running.

"It's hard to determine if the website was specifically targeted or if it was just attacked by bots crawling the internet for websites with security weaknesses," Techzim said in one of its updates on the incident.

The Zimbabwe government says it wants a Cyber Crime and Computer Bill passed into law before elections in 2018.

'Our people are being abused'

Critics say the bill contains lots of vague sections, which could be used to clamp down on freedom of expression, especially on social media where criticism of Mugabe's government and party is robust. But the bill's proponents, including IT Minister Supa Mandiwanzira, believe it will reduce hacking and cyber-bullying.

"Our people are being abused," he said in June. "They are vulnerable and we need to protect them."