Global websites hacked by Syrian Electronic Army
Global websites hacked by Syrian Electronic Army
Katrina Bishop Arjun Kharpal
7 Hours Ago CNBC.com
A number of websites – including CNBC and other media
organizations - were targeted by the Syrian Electronic Army on Thursday.
Screenshots posted on Twitter showed an error message on
a number websites that read: "You've been hacked by the Syrian Electronic
Army (SEA)". The SEA logo – of an eagle and a version of the Syrian flag -
appeared on other sites.
Companies including Dell, Microsoft, Ferrari and
humanitarian organization Unicef were among those targeted, according to
screenshots on Twitter and a website claiming to be form the SEA. Media
organizations such as Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, The Telegraph
and Italy's La Repubblica were also affected. The error message appeared to
some users of CNBC.com.
Gigya, a customer management platform used by over 700
leading brands, was identified as one cause of the issue. In a statement
published in its website on Thursday afternoon, the company said it had been
the subject of a service attack.
It stressed that the attack was a result of a breach with
its domain registrar which in some cases resulted in Gigya services being
redirected to the attacker's sites.
"To be absolutely clear: neither Gigya's platform
itself nor any user, administrator or operational data has been compromised and
was never at risk of being compromised," the company said.
CNBC wasn't able to independently verify the authenticity
of the SEA's website or screenshots posted on Twitter.
Security experts said that the attack in no way
maliciously compromised the websites, but in effect, redirected users to a page
created by the SEA.
"It is PR move to show they have the skills, but what
they are doing is not dramatically sophisticated," Ernest Hilbert,
managing director of cybercrime at investigations firm Kroll, and former FBI
agent, told CNBC.
"This is a defacement of a website and they
redirected traffic from the real site to a site with their stuff on it
instead."
Hilbert added that the attack was launched today because
it is Thanksgiving in the U.S. where many people would be sitting at home
browsing news websites on their laptops and mobile devices.
The Syrian Electronic Army has claimed to be behind a
number of high-profile cyber-attacks over recent years. The group is a hacker
collective that supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to what
appears to be the group's official website.
In January this year, the group claimed it had
temporarily compromised the Twitter account of U.S. President Barack Obama. It
has also claimed to be behind earlier attacks of media organizations including
the Associated Press and The Financial Times.
On its website, the Syrian Electronic Army says it was
created in 2011 "when the Arab and Western media started their bias in
favor of terrorist groups that have killed civilians, the Syrian Arab Army and
have destroyed private and public property."
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