Syrian Electronic Army Hacks the Washington Post and redirects users to SEA’s website
The Washington Post site temporarily shut down after being hacked by Syrian Electronic Army (SEA)
One of the most successful hacking units and the blatantly pro-Assad regime hacking outfit, Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), today hacked into the Washington Post website and redirected visitors to pages owned by them.
In an attack on the Washington Post Thursday, hackers supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hijacked parts of the Post’s Web site so that users were redirected to a site controlled by the SEA. The hack was announced by them through their Twitter account Official_SEA16 :
#SEA hacks @Washingtonpost mobile site in order to deliver a message. #SEApic.twitter.com/CDX5CKSXRk
— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA16) May 14, 2015
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Top security analyst, Ken White also noticed the hack
The Washington Post ad network's been hijacked. History repeats: https://t.co/4dLYhldEI0 / cc @NathanMattise @htsuka pic.twitter.com/X3jx0sOicu
— Kenn White (@kennwhite) May 14, 2015
The SEA got entry into the WaPo website through the content delivery network, InstartLogic and defaced it with a message popping up saying “You’ve been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army,” . The users were also redirected to a site owned by them in some cases.
The WaPo officials say that the disruption lasted over 30 minutes and the site was taken down for maintenance. Washington Post chief information officer Shailesh Prakash said that that the SEA hack attack affected the Post’s mobile homepage and “some section fronts on the mobile site,” but not article pages. “The situation has been resolved and no customer information was impacted,” said Prakash in a statement.
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The SEA accuses Washington Post and other Western media websites of defaming and spreading misinformation about the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. This is not the first time SEA has attacked Western media interests, on 15th August, 2013, the SEA brought down almost all big websites like CNN, Washington post, The New York Times using a flaw in Outbrain, a content recommendation service.
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