Syrian Electronic Army And The Cyber War Against The Revolution

Syrian Electronic Army And The Cyber War Against The Revolution

A number of news websites were victims of hacking attacks launched by the Syrian Electronic Army recently. The main twitter account of the Associated Press was hacked by the group recently, which resulted to huge stock losses.

The last two years saw footages being uploaded showing victims of the Syrian government as well as videos showing anti-Assad demonstrations. This resulted to changes in the perception among western nations with EU leaders taking into consideration giving arms to the moderate opposition in Syria.

However, the government of Assad created the counter-revolutionary hacker group to deal with the uploaded videos and footages. The Syrian Electronic Army is attacking news organizations that criticize the regime in Syria. It is also promoting the idea that the war aims to turn Syria into an al Qaeda fiefdom.

The group started when the anti-Assad revolution began in 2011 and is supposedly operating under the auspices of the Syrian government. It was initially based in Damascus before it moved its operations to Dubai. Rami Makhlouf, the billionaire cousin of Assad, is supposedly financing the Syrian Electronic Army, which is composed of Alawites, Sunnis, and Christians.

According to opposition cyber-activist Tareq al-Jaza'eere, there are times when the group receives orders from Damascus although it would sometimes work on its own. He added that the group receives money from the Syrian government for the cyber-war against the rebels.

The attacks of the group may be crude but they are effective according to analysts. The website of the Syrian Electronic Army shows the success of the group as well as the activists sitting in front of computers while wearing fatigues. The group uses phishing in their attacks.

Rik Furguson of Trend Micro indicated that the work of the hackers were visible and is rather effective. However, the targets of the attacks do not appear to cause widespread damage.

The website of the group indicates that it is fight against false news spread by western and Arab media about the situation in Syria. A member of the Syrian Electronic Army indicated that they have the mission of defending Syria against the media war waged against the country.

Posted by James Fried on Thursday May 02 2013, 3:57 AM EST. Ref: The Guardian. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0