Twitter and New York Times Hacked by Syrian Activists

A hacker group going by the name the "Syrian Electronic Army" claimed responsibility for Tuesday's cyberattack.

The attack affected the New York Times and attempted to attack Twitter; the activists hit Melbourne IT, an Australian company that registered both companies' domain names. Melbourne IT is the world's sixth largest registrar of internet domain names. Theo Hnarakis, chief executive of Melbourne IT, said the security breach occurred at a major US-based global reseller, or domain agent, where the hackers launched what he called a "spear phishing attack" within the past week to steal the log in details of both the New York Times and Twitter domains. Hnaraski refused to name the reseller, a major Melbourne IT client. "This activist group used a very, very sophisticated spear phishing attack," Hnarakis said. "We don't put this down to a technical failure. We put it down to human error where someone has inadvertently provided their information..."

The hackers accessed the New York Times site using this log in information provided to them by several staff members of Melbourne IT. Because of this attack, the New York Times site was down for several hours after what it calls a "malicious external attack" that affected its website and email. The hackers attempted to hack into Twitter but failed due to an added security measure the company opted to obtain from Melbourne IT; the Times did not have this secondary security feature which left it vulnerable. The Syrian Electronic Army tweeted, "Media is going down..." shortly before the websites stopped working. This cyberattack came at a time when the US and its allies are considering intervening in Syria. All service was restored early this morning and the websites are back to normal.