SEA hacks International Business Times (IBT) for alleged false coverage of events happening in Syria
The hackers collective, Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) today hacked the International Business Times and compromised its website. SEA which is the staunchest supporter of current Syrian regime lead by Hafez Al-Assad said that it hacked IBTimes for its purported misrepresentation of Syrian regime interests in its reporting.
The Syrian Electronic Army took on the site yesterday and altered a news feature written by one of IBTimes reporters, Alessandria Masi. The SEA which takes pride in just hacking websites and defacing pages to make their views known to world did not touch other articles on the website.
They also left a message on the deface page which said that,“This time we only deleted the article that [contained]false information about Syria and the Syrian army,” the message posted online read. “Next time, we will delete all [of]your website.” They also confirmed the hack on their Twitter handle
Little message to @IBTimes https://t.co/nrqCG47ggz https://t.co/bIYINc73zo #SEA #SyrianElectronicArmy pic.twitter.com/OuMaJwBbP7
— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA16) December 17, 2014
IBTimes managing editor, Mark Bonner also confirmed the attack in a message posted on his personal Twitter account.
https://twitter.com/markfbonner/status/545341165277818880
The report in question, “The Syrian Army Is Shrinking, And Assad Is Running Out Of Soldiers.” which bemoans Assad’s depleting army in the fight against the Syrian rebels, was deleted by the SEA has now has been restored by IBTimes. The articles reporter Alessandria Masi said the deleted article had been written by her, and that the altered article published by the Syrian Electronic Army in its place carried the byline of a colleague working in its India bureau.
SEA had used the identity of IBTimes chief editor, Peter S. Goodman to access the site. SEA confirmed to Techworm that IBTimes had closed the backdoor by shutting down the CMS and now they dont have access to the backdoor and pointing out other than the alleged misrepresentation of Syria by IBTimes, they had no interest in the website.
SEA is known to target high profile media organisations especially those websites which post supposed pro western and anti Assad regime stories. Earlier this month it had hacked several high profile websites including many United Kingdom media websites to put across its stance about their reporting.
