The world is a very large place, but it is getting smaller, thanks to the advent of computers and Information Technology. However, the progress that we've made in these fields also has a dark side, in that a new terrorist tactic, commonly called Cyberterrorism has developed. The old, conventional methods of assassination and hostage taking are slowly fading, as terrorists head towards the Internet to pull their stunts.
9. Syrian Electronic Army
(Hackers Group)
The SEA claims responsibility for defacing or
otherwise compromising hundreds of websites
that it contends spread news hostile to the Syrian
government. These include news websites such
as BBC News, the Associated Press, National
Public Radio, Al Jazeera, Financial Times, The
Daily Telegraph,[11] The Washington Post,[12]
Syrian satellite broadcaster Orient TV, and Dubai-
based al-Arabia TV,[5] as well as rights
organizations such as Human Rights Watch.[13]
Other SEA targets include VoIP apps, such as
Viber, and Tango.
10. Cyber Attacks
July 2011: University of California Los Angeles website defaced by
SEA hacker "The Pro".[19]
September 2011: Harvard University website defaced in what was
called the work of a "sophisticated group or individual". The
Harvard homepage was replaced with an image of Syrian president
Bashar al-Assad, with a message saying "Syrian Electronic Army
Were Here".[20]
April 2012: The Syrian Electronic Army took down the official blog
of social media website LinkedIn. The page was redirected instead
to a site supporting Bashar al-Assad.[21]
August 2012: The Twitter account of the Reuters news agency was
hacked by the SEA. 22 tweets were sent with false information on
the conflict in Syria. In addition, the Reuters news website was
compromised, and a false report was posted about to a Reuters
journalist's blog.[22]
23 April 2013: The SEA hijacked the Associated Press Twitter
account and falsely claimed the White House had been bombed
and President Barack Obama injured.
11. Cont..
May 2013: The Twitter account of The Onion was compromised by the
SEA, by phishing Google Apps accounts of The Onion's employees.[18]
May 2013: The ITV news London Twitter account was hacked on the 24th
May 2013 by the SEA. The Android applications of British Broadcaster Sky
News were also hacked on 26 May 2013 on Google Play Store.
17 July 2013, Truecaller servers were allegedly hacked into by the Syrian
Electronic Army.[23] The group claimed on its twitter handle to have
recovered 459 GiBs of database, primarily due to an older version of
Wordpress installed on the servers. The hackers also released TrueCaller's
alleged database host ID, username, and password via another tweet.[24]
On 18 July 2013, Truecaller issued a statement on its blog stating that their
servers were indeed hacked, but claiming that the attack did not disclose
any passwords or credit card information.[25]
23 July 2013: Viber servers were allegedly hacked into by SEA as well. The
Viber support website was replaced with a message and a supposed
screenshot of data that was obtained during the intrusion.[26][27][28]
27 August 2013: NYTimes.com has its DNS redirected to a page that
displays the message "Hacked by SEA" and Twitter's domain registrar was
changed[30]
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