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The Syrian Electronic Army Strikes Again

Benjamin Li |
August 15, 2013 | 10:06 p.m. PDT

Executive Producer

Victoria Pickering/Flickr Creative Commons
Victoria Pickering/Flickr Creative Commons
The Washington Post released a statement Thursday announcing that its main website was compromised.

A spokesperson for the Washington Post said in a statement that for about 30 minutes on Thursday, all online visitors of the Washington Post were temporarily redirected to the homepage of the self-proclaimed Syrian Electronic Army.

The Post was hacked via a content management company called Outbrain, a firm that many news outlets to direct readers to recommended online content.

Outbrain’s official blog revealed that the hack was done through a “phishing email” under the guise of an email from Outbrain’s CEO which prompted employees to reveal their information.

“Once an employee had revealed their information, the hackers were able to infiltrate our email systems and identify other credentials for accessing some of our internal systems,” reads Outbrain’s blog.

The attack on Outbrain and the Washington Post is the most recent incident in a string of cyber-attacks from the SEA. The group has taken credit for hacking numerous media outlets it deems to be “sympathizers” to Syrian dissidents, including the New York Post, the Associated Press, the CNN, NPR, BBC, the and more.

The Syrian Electronic Army is a group of computer hackers in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that was first formed around April 2011 in response to attacks on Assad’s regime.

The SEA’s affiliation with the official Syrian administration is unclear, and the group claims most of its members are college students.

The professional quality of their cyber-attacks suggest otherwise – in one of the group’s bigger stints, the SEA hacked into Associated Press’s Twitter handle and posted false information, causing a sudden billion-dollar nosedive in the stock market.

In an interview with the Daily Beast, a leader of the SEA brought to light the true intentions of the group.

“We want to let the world know the truth that is happening in Syria,” said the hacker leader. “There is no revolution in Syria, but terrorists killing people accusing Syrian Arab Army.”

 

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