Syrian Electronic Army Send Phishing Emails To White House Staff

Syrian Electronic Army Send Phishing Emails To White House Staff

The Syrian Electronic Army did not limit their target to Thomson Reuters since the group has reportedly targeted the Twitter account of the White House.

The activity resulted to the suspension of the Twitter accounts of the group. The group revealed through its website that the management of Twitter suspended their account following the hacking of the Twitter account of Thomson Reuters. Its attempt at hacking the account of the White House also contributed to the suspension of its Twitter account.

The group indicated that its account was back online following a threat to hack more accounts. However, there was no evidence that this was the reason for the restoration of its Twitter account.

The Syrian Electronic Army revealed the login and password of the Hootsuite account of the White House. The group indicated that the passwords of the Twitter account of the White House were old.

The hackers were able to secure the data through phishing, according to Nextgov. Emails that contained supposed links to news websites were sent to the White House staff. Once the users clicked the link, they were asked to use their Twitter or Gmail accounts to sign in are read the content. The links gave the group the passwords to access the accounts of the staff.

The Syrian Electronic Army may have been looking for high-profile accounts on the emails of the staff. However, the current password of the account of the White House could not be found on any of the accounts.

The Twitter account of Thomson Reuters was accessed by the group, which tweeted images and hashtags that were in favor of Syria.

The group initially surfaced last September and started reprisal attacks on Western websites due to an anti-Islamic video. The Middle East was hit by violent demonstrations due to the video. The Syrian Electronic Army has targeted numerous news websites that they considered to be unsympathetic to the government of Syria.

Posted by James Fried on Thursday August 01 2013, 3:49 AM EST. Ref: PC Mag. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0