The Financial Times is the latest news organization to fall 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.
"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.
It seems like the Onion news organization will be the next victim of the Syrian Electronic Army's cyber attack on News organization.
Few minutes ago, 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 .
It seems like they have hacked the official facebook pages including The Onion and Online sports.
If i am not wrong, 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:
Few minutes ago, 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
It seems like they have hacked the official facebook pages including The Onion and Online sports.
If i am not wrong, 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:
 |
The Syrian Electronic army once again strikes another news organization. The Twitter account(Eonline) belong to the Entertainment news organization E! Online which had more than 5.2M followers was hacked by the SEA.
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"
"This message will reach 33,684 subscribers... From E!News SMS Service Control Panel" Hacker posted in their official twitter account.
The Syrian Electronic Army(SEA) reportedly hijacked 11 Twitter accounts belong to the Guardian newspaper. 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 still redirect 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.
The twitter account of Associated Press (@AP) was hacked today by Syrian Electronic Army which was used to spread a bogus message that there had been two explosions at the White House and that Barack Obama was injured .
This made major stocks drop , but they recovered quickly after people realized that the tweet was fake
White House spokesperson Jay Carney confirmed that Barack Obama was fine. Syrian Electronic Army has taken responsibility for the attack, they had also attacked other media sites and accounts in the past.\
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"
For now the Twitter account of Associated Press has been suspended until it is made sure that the accounts are secure again.
Note : Will update when I get more details
Emma Stone , an American actress has revealed that hackers have hijacked her twitter account and posted a series of tweets.
Fans of Emma were worried when a tweet was made from her account, an anagram for "Andrew and Shailene sitting in a tree", which appeared to claim her boyfriend Andrew Garfield was cheating on her with their Amazing Spider-Man 2 co-star Shailene Woodley - according to the CASTANET report.
"I have never tweeted, my friend. I've tweeted one time to Seth MacFarlane. I said, 'Me too, oh boy' In an interview for On Air With Ryan Seacrest, she explained.
She is not able to access her account because the hackers changed her email id and password, but since the incident, she and her team are trying to delete her twitter account.
Emma also revealed it was only when the tweet about Shailene and Andrew made headlines that she found out she had been hacked.
"That was the first one I heard. And then I heard there was a rich history of other things I've tweeted and deleted, and I didn't know about any of this happening because I don't go on Twitter." Emma said.
Syrian Hacktivists known as "Syrian Electronic Army" has taken control of the three official Twitter accounts belong to BBC.
The hackers hijacked the BBC Arabic Online(@BBCArabicOnline), BBC Weather account(@BBCWeather) and BBC Radio Ulster account (@bbcradioulster).
After hijacking the BBCArabicOnline , the hacktivists tweeted "Syrian Electronic Army was here via @Official_SEA #SEA".
"And that came in response to what BBC practiced of lies and fabrication of news and in addition to the bias to the bloody opposition" Hackers stated the reason for this cyber attack.
Speaking to EHN, the hacker provided the email id, password of email id and passwords of Twitter accounts. At the time of writing, the BBC recovered their accounts back.
The twitter account of a famous south korean singer Eun Hyuk (@AllRiseSilver) has been hacked and is now the latest addition to the long list of famous celebrities that were hacked this year.
Tweet: "So my account had been hacked into. No wonder that other time a tweet I had never written came up and was erased again... Now I′m following ′Heenim′ (Heechul), who isn′t even on Twitter anymore? Who′s impersonating him this time? Yeah, great."
After recovering his account he tweeted (Translated) : You've got my account hacked. Somehow came up the last time I AIME Mentions were erased ... with huinim post say matpal? Spivey, who impersonate? It vs. or http:// twitpic.com/cail69
Unlike other twitter hacks this does not seem like an attempt to exploit the users by attempting to infect them or stealing traffic.It looks like it was just done "for fun" .
The most interesting thing is the followers reaction to this .
As you can see these sort of hacks lead to a negative attitude towards hackers.
Yet famous people on twitter should note that they are also equally responsible for these sort of hacks. They have the moral responsibility to keep their accounts secure as possible, cause when they get hacked they are also putting at risk all the innocent users that are following them.
We can refer this week as Twitter account hack week. Following the high profile twitter account hack, now twitter account of a hacker also hijacked by hackers.
A Hacker group called as Rustle League has hijacked @Anon_Central, Twitter account belong to one of the Anonymous hacktivist that has more than 160k followers.
"The reason Anonymous fell victim is probably human weakness," BBC cited as Graham Cluley saying, senior consultant at security firm Sophos.
"Chances are that they followed poor password practices, like using the same password in multiple places or choosing a password that was easy to crack.
In response to the numerous account compromises, Twitter has issued a “friendly reminder about password security” in which they advise users to follow four important rules to make sure their accounts aren’t hacked.
A Hacker group called as Rustle League has hijacked @Anon_Central, Twitter account belong to one of the Anonymous hacktivist that has more than 160k followers.
"The reason Anonymous fell victim is probably human weakness," BBC cited as Graham Cluley saying, senior consultant at security firm Sophos.
"Chances are that they followed poor password practices, like using the same password in multiple places or choosing a password that was easy to crack.
In response to the numerous account compromises, Twitter has issued a “friendly reminder about password security” in which they advise users to follow four important rules to make sure their accounts aren’t hacked.
Hackers hijacked the official Twitter account of Jeep on Tuesday and posted fake tweets about the brand being sold to Cadillac.
The hack was similar to Burger King twitter account hijack on Monday. In Burger King account hack, the cyber criminals changed the profile picture to McDonald's logo.
"The official Twitter handle for the Jeep Just Empty Every Pocket. Sold to Cadillac. In a hood near you!" read the tagline on Jeep's Twitter page.
"Sorry guys, no more Jeep production because we caught our CEO doing this," One of the tweets read, shows a man who appears to be smoking a joint.
Cadillac representatives clarified that the company "is not connected to the hack of the @Jeep Twitter account."
Gizmodo has done some research about this hack and reported that a DJ from New England could be the hacker.
An unknown hacker breached the Twitter account of fast-food chain Burger King and announced the company had been “bought out” by McDonald’s.
The @BurgerKing account name was changed today to "McDonalds" and changed the logo with McDonalds Logo with a message "Just got sold to McDonalds because the whopper flopped =FreeDom is Failure""
“We just got sold to McDonalds! Look for McDonalds in a hood near you,” the hacker tweeted from the hacked account.
According to report, the account was suspended by Twitter after the hack. The hack was announced by the Infamous Anonymous Twitter account "@YourAnonNews". But we are not sure who hacked the account.
At the time of writing, the hacked account is back to online but the tweets are protected.
