May 19, 2013 (TSR) – The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is indeed experiencing ‘synchronous and coordinated’ cyberattacks. Just recovering from #OpSaudi this week, another one strikes them out of nowhere. The Syrian Electronic Army has tweeted they have compromised early this morning the Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defence Mail system.

“The #SEA is prepared to release secret documents that belong to the Saudi Arabian defense ministry after compromising their email system”, one of the tweets reads.

The group said “The leaks include correspondence and secret arms deals from the Saudi Ministry of Defense… These were forwarded to the Syrian government.”

The hacker also provided a screenshot that proves the Syrian Electronic Army has managed to gain access to the Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defence Mail system.

Syrian Electronic Army gives a screenshot of their latest victim: The Saudi Defense Mail System on May 19, 2013. (thesantosrepublic.com)
Syrian Electronic Army gives a screenshot of their latest victim: The Saudi Defense Mail System on May 19, 2013. (thesantosrepublic.com)

 

Earlier this year, in January, they group also breached all the websites that belong to Ministry of Defense of Saudi Arabian and other government websites.

They have hacked The Saudi Ministry of Defense (moda.gov.sa), Saudi Arabia Defense Industries (mic.gov.sa), Admission gate of the Armed Forces (afca.gov.sa). a Saudi government site (csc.edu.sa), General Directorate of Military Works (gdmw.gov.sa),  General Directorate of Military Survey (gdms.gov.sa), a Saudi government site (psmpq.org.sa), safous.gov.sa, Royal Saudi Land Forces (rslf.gov.sa), Royal Saudi Navy Foces (rsnf.gov.sa) , General Organization for Military Industries(mic.org.sa).

Syrian Electronic Army hacked The Saudi Ministry of Defense (moda.gov.sa), Saudi Arabia Defense Industries (mic.gov.sa), Admission gate of the Armed Forces (afca.gov.sa). a Saudi government site (csc.edu.sa), General Directorate of Military Works (gdmw.gov.sa),  General Directorate of Military Survey (gdms.gov.sa), a Saudi government site (psmpq.org.sa), safous.gov.sa, Royal Saudi Land Forces (rslf.gov.sa), Royal Saudi Navy Foces (rsnf.gov.sa) , General Organization for Military Industries(mic.org.sa) in January 2013. (thesantorepublic.com)
Syrian Electronic Army hacked The Saudi Ministry of Defense (moda.gov.sa), Saudi Arabia Defense Industries (mic.gov.sa), Admission gate of the Armed Forces (afca.gov.sa). a Saudi government site (csc.edu.sa), General Directorate of Military Works (gdmw.gov.sa), General Directorate of Military Survey (gdms.gov.sa), a Saudi government site (psmpq.org.sa), safous.gov.sa, Royal Saudi Land Forces (rslf.gov.sa), Royal Saudi Navy Foces (rsnf.gov.sa) , General Organization for Military Industries(mic.org.sa) in January 2013. (thesantorepublic.com)
At the time of writing , most of the affected websites appeared to have been taken offline.  The mirror of defacement was here:
http://www.zone-h.org/mirror/id/18910865

The group became well known for managing to penetrate top organizations such as Mastercard Worldwide, Qatar Foundation, AFP, France24, BBC, Financial Times, The Onion, E! News, the Guardian, Haaretz, and more.

#SEA was also responsible in compromising the mail system of Israel News Paper Haaretz and gained access to more than 80 email accounts and passwords of Haaretz employees and leaked the data in their official website. (syrian-es.org/leaks/Haaretz/Haaretz-EmailsAndPasswords)

They spoofed emails to Haaretz employees and asked them to click a link that leads to an article on website of The Guardian, about talks between the United States and the Syrian opposition. Once the employee click the link, it redirect the victim to a page requesting them to enter their login credentials that allowed hackers to breach their work email accounts.

Financial Times

On May 17, The Financial Times also fell victim to the Syrian Electronic Army – The Social engineering masterminds.  The group hijacked more than 15 twitter accounts belong to the FT.

Syrian Electronic Army Was Here via @Official_SEA12 #SEA | http://on.ft.com/10VeNhY ” few minutes ago, the SEA tweeted from the hacked ft accounts.

The hacker also made two posts on the technology blog with the title “Hacked by Syrian Electronic Army”.  The posts have been removed at the time of writing.

The list of hacked twitter accounts:
1.@FTLiveTweets
2.@FTTradingRoom
3.@ftphotodiary
4.@ftdavos
5.@FTMarkets
6.@FTAerospace
7.@Ftindianews
8.@ftbrussels
9.@ftenergy
10. @ftwestminister
11. @ftuselections
12.@ ftvideo
13.@ ftuseconomy
14. @fttheworld
15. @thelexcolumn
16.chief correspondent (@meganmurp)

*Update: 8.50PM(GMT+5.30) : It appears the hijacked account has been recovered by the FT Team.

“Today various FT Twitter accounts and one FT blog (not more as previously stated) were compromised by hackers. We have now secured those accounts are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”One of the tweet from @FTPressOffice reads.
The same group recently the hijacked the twitter accounts of Guardian, E! News, BBC, The Onion and Associated Press.

E! News Twitter account and SMS Service hacked

The Twitter account (Eonline) belong to the Entertainment news organization E! Online which had more than 5.2M followers was also hacked by the SEA earlier this month.

The hackers tweeted fake messages after hijacking the account.  “Exclusive: Justin Bieber to E!online: I’m a gay,” reads the first fake tweets posted by SEA.

“E! News Breaking: Justin Bieber arrested in Dubai due to false tweets with him coming out situation developing” another tweet reads.

“This account @eonline was compromised and some incorrect information was sent out. ” E! online confirmed the security breach. “We’re working with Twitter now to fix this.”

The hacker also managed to compromise the SMS service of E! Online and sent the above message as well as the following message “E! News Breaking: Fuck Barack Obama via Syrian Electronic Army”

Syrian Electronic Army hacks Eonline's social media accounts. (thesantosrepublic.com)
Syrian Electronic Army hacks Eonline’s social media accounts. (thesantosrepublic.com)

“This message will reach 33,684 subscribers… From E!News SMS Service Control Panel” Hacker posted in their official twitter account.

The Onion twitter accounts and Facebook hacked

The Onion news organization became also the victim of the Syrian Electronic Army’s cyber attack right after targeting Eonline.

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) has provided a screenshot that shows they have gained accessed to the official twitter account.

Based on the screenshot provided by the hacker group, they have compromised the four onion’s twitter accounts including @theonion,@OnionSports, @onionpolitics, @onionstroe and  @TheAVClub .

They have also hacked the official facebook pages including The Onion and Online sports.

There’s reasons to believe that the SEA still have access to those twitter accounts because the tweets in the screenshot has been posted before 1 hour.

The screenshot tweeted by the hacker:

Syrian Electronic Army also hacked the Onion right after attacking Eonline. (thesantosrepublic.com)
Syrian Electronic Army also hacked the Onion right after attacking Eonline. (thesantosrepublic.com)

11 Guardian Twitter Accounts Compromised

The Syrian Electronic Army(SEA) reportedly hijacked 11 Twitter accounts belonging to the Guardian newspaper after hacking AP’s social media accounts.  Hackers claimed the attack came after the Guardian preying lies and slander about Syria.

The hacker group also stated that cyber war against Twitter security team for suspending its account.

List of hijacked accounts includes @GuardianBooks, @GuardianTravel, @guardianfilm, @guardianphotos, @guardianstage and few other accounts.

While few twitter accounts have been recovered, most of the twitter accounts were being redirected to the suspended page.

“We will keep hacking #Twitter accounts and cause for you problems if you keep suspending our accounts #SEA” one of the tweets reads.

Associated Press twitter accounts hacked, Major Stocks dropped

The twitter account of Associated Press (@AP) was hacked on April 23 by Syrian Electronic Army which was used to spread a  ‘ironic’ message that there had been two explosions at the White House and that Barack Obama was injured.

The Syrian Electronic Army also attack the Associated Press social media account on April 23, 2013. (thesantosrepublic.com)
The Syrian Electronic Army also attack the Associated Press social media account on April 23, 2013. (thesantosrepublic.com)

Funny enough, this made major stocks drop, but they recovered quickly after people realized that the tweet was fake.

After the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the Associated Press saying that the White House was bombed and Barack Obama was injured, major stocks dropped. (thesantosrepublic.com)
After the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the Associated Press saying that the White House was bombed and Barack Obama was injured, major stocks dropped. (thesantosrepublic.com)

White House spokesperson Jay Carney confirmed that Barack Obama was fine.

Mike Baker a Journalist who works for Associated Press tweeted “The @AP hack came less than an hour after some of us received an impressively disguised phishing email”

The Twitter account of Associated Press was suspended until it is made sure that the accounts are secure again.

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