If you remember when the Associated Press tweeted "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.”, the same people are now saying they are responsible for hacking another media organization. On May 17, multiple Twitter accounts as well as the main Financial Times site displayed messages saying "Syrian Electronic Army was here" as well as "Hacked By Syrian Electronic Army", according to The Next Web .
Since then, the 14 Twitter accounts have been reclaimed and statements have been made describing what happened.
"Various FT Blogs and social media accounts have been compromised by hackers and we are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. "
The Syrian Electronic Army has claimed attacks on CBS, The BBC, The Guardian, The Onion, NPR and The Associated Press. The group itself is aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has posted racial and political messages in the past.
So why are they doing what they’re doing and how? According to T he Verge's Adi Robertson , the hackers use phishing emails aimed at members of the press to gain access to their account details. And PC Mag notes that the hacking group likely emerged as retaliation for "Innocence of Muslims" by attacking Western websites. They are no longer targeting just Western sites and they seem to just be basing attacks on whether a site may be posting material harmful to the Syrian government.
So are these attacks dangerous? While most hacked Tweets seem harmless, the stock market drop caused by the AP's tweet was very real, though brief. The fact that all of these media sites could be so easily overtaken is probably also a little worrisome. But overall, as long as you check your facts and don’t go all CNN on us, the hacking is, at this time, benign.
All media members in the meantime should beef up their security measures and consider which emails they open very carefully.
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