Cyberattack silences Outa

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), best known for defeating Gauteng’s e‑tolls, has been crippled by a cyberattack that hijacked its Meta advertising account and cut off a vital channel for its anti‑corruption campaigns.

The civil society group said the attack occurred on Monday.

Cyber attack

Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage said the attack compromised their advertising account with Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook.

“A malicious cyberattack compromised Outa’s Meta advertising account. No supporter or donor information was accessed or compromised. Your privacy remains secure.

“Despite exhausting every support channel, our advertising account remains restricted, limiting our ability to reach South Africans with campaigns that expose corruption, fight tax abuse, and raise the donations that fund our work,” Duvenhage said.

Advertising account

Duvenage said that Outa’s Meta advertising account was also compromised “a few months ago”.

“Fortunately, we detected the breach early, and there were losses from the abuse of our account, but it was limited, so the breach had nothing to do with customers’ names, and it was just that account that we used to promote our work on Facebook.

“So, we immediately followed Facebook’s required processes, we investigated the matter, and we engaged with Meta to explain what had happened, and from our perspective, we had followed the process and done nothing wrong. Meta acknowledged the issue, and they refunded the money that we’d lost a couple of R1 000,” Duvenhage said.

Alleged restriction

Duvenhage explained that after the breach, Meta allegedly “restricted” Outa’s account.

“Something extraordinary happened. Instead of helping us resolve the problem, Meta restricted our advertising account and has effectively prevented us from marketing our work on Facebook.

“Despite repeated attempts to engage with them, we’ve received no meaningful explanation or a practical path to restore our account.

“In fact, we’ve even been blocked from opening a new advertising account by them,” Duvenhage claimed.

Corruption

Duvenage said the organisation isn’t asking for special treatment, only a fair hearing and resolution.

He has appealed directly to Meta to help restore Outa’s voice, warning: “Corruption doesn’t take a day off.”

The Citizen has reached out to Meta for a response.