The eNatis vehicle registration system website had not been hacked, the Department of Transport said on Thursday.
”The Department of Transport has condemned in the strongest terms the recent news reports purporting that the eNatis website has been hacked,” spokesperson Collen Msibi said in a statement released on Thursday afternoon.
Earlier in the day Msibi said an investigation was under way to establish how the site was hacked into.
He said the department had requested that Tasima, the eNatis service provider, investigate the allegations relating to the website.
”These allegations are misleading,” he said, later in the day.
On Wednesday, when the ”how do I” link on the eNatis website was clicked, the message ”Sorry bro..anda terlambat. Patch By Tao. OK?!!.” appeared on an otherwise blank screen.
On Thursday, the ”how do I” link appeared to have been removed.
A news update on the site read: ”Some media hype has suggested that the eNatis system was hacked recently. This was apparently due to someone leaving a comment on a page of a section of the eNatis public website.
”The suggestion that eNatis was hacked is actually laughable. The eNatis public website is in no way connected at all to the eNatis system. This choice was a deliberate design choice.”
Earlier on Thursday, Msibi said hackers had only accessed the public section of the eNatis website, which provides information to the public and allows for user comment.
Msibi said the website was a tool of communication with non-secure data and runs on a public hosting area.
”The department encourages all members of society to visit the eNatis website to obtain information regarding the various services and updates on the system and the website also allows for interaction with the public.”
Msibi also said that the allegations that the site had been hacked would not affect the eNatis system at all.
”The eNatis website and the eNatis system are two different programmes. The department wants to reassure all South Africans that these allegations of hacking have nothing to do with the eNatis system and the system is running optimally with no interruption whatsoever.
”The system has in fact stabilised since the interventions of May 8 and the days of long queues are long over.
”It must also be emphasised that the eNatis system is secured with high security features such as intrusion detecting software of high standard.”
In May, the crashing of the eNatis system caused chaos in the licencing system and the fracas ended up in court when the department attempted to prevent Beeld newspaper from writing about a confidential report about eNatis before it was presented to Parliament.
The newspaper won the case in the Pretoria High Court. – Sapa