“Syrian Electronic Army” Claims Responsibility For Hacking Of AP Twitter Account

A group of hackers is claiming responsibility for yesterday’s incident in which the Associated Press Twitter feed was hacked, sent out a false report of an attack on the White House, and momentarily caused the stock market to dip:

A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army claimed responsibility for the attack. The group’s Twitter account is linked to the Web site Syrianelectronicarmy.com, an Arabic language Web site that broadcasts what the group says are its latest computer attacks. Even as the Twitter accounts for @AP and @AP_Mobile were suspended Tuesday afternoon, the Syrian Electronic Army was posting.

Ops! @AP get owned by Syrian Electronic Army! #SEA #Syria #ByeByeObama http://t.co/HTKoO6gIL6

— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA6) 23 Apr 13

The A.P.’s account was the sixth prominent Twitter account to be hacked in recent months. On Saturday, three CBS-affiliated Twitter accounts were hacked and used to post suspicious links.

Hackers, saying they were part of the Syrian Electronic Army, claimed responsibility for hacking several NPR Twitter accounts last week as well as BBC Twitter accounts last month.

Who this group actually might be is unclear. They may be connected with Syrian or the rebellion, or they could just be Anonymous under another name.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. matt bernius says:

    Who this group actually might be is unclear. They may be connected with Syrian or the rebellion, or they could just be Anonymous under another name.

    Doug, no offense, but a bit of research (like under 5 minutes) would tell you that the Syrian Electronic Army is definitely pro Assad Regime and targets media organizations they feel are releasing pro-rebel propaganda.

    They’ve been around for a while and recently have been making more headlines by targeting sites on high news days. So in addition to hacking twitter accounts, they wiped the NPR news pages on the night of the Boston Bombing.

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-syrian-electronic-army