The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) is starting strong in 2014 by taking over Skype’s social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and even its blog. By taking over the accounts, the SEA used the platforms to spread an anti-NSA message which involved Microsoft (which owns Skype.)
Don’t use Microsoft emails (hotmail,outlook), They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments, – SEA
The hack became obvious earlier this afternoon when Skype’s Twitter account published a tweet telling people to stay away from Microsoft services. Along with its own tweet, Skype’s Twitter retweeted one of SEA’s tweets.
While its presence on social media websites has been targeted, Skype itself has not been affected by the SEA hack, meaning that users of Skype and other Microsoft services should not be worried.
Since launching its website in 2011, the Syrian Electronic Army has publicly stated that it is not associated with the actual Syrian government. Instead, the group is made up of young patriotic citizens who have continued to support Bashar al-Assad government. At the same time as the war in Syria began to attain the US’s attention, the SEA ramped up its attacks against numerous institutions during 2013.
Earlier this year, the SEA made headlines when it hacked the Twitter account of the Associated Press and made posts stating that the White House had been bombed and that President Barack Obama had been injured in the attack. Although these tweets were quickly removed, they caused a massive $136.5 billion dip on the S&P 500.
The vast majority of SEA’a attacks have taken advantage of the social media profiles or websites of large institutions to spread their message regarding the Assad government. Recently, in the last quarter of 2013, SEA specifically went after groups and individuals who had opposed the Assad government and had supported the rebels who are trying to bring a change in government to the country.
Just recently, Skype finally took back control of its social media accounts and deleted the posts from the SEA. Neither Microsoft nor Skype have publicly commented on the hack but they have taken action to reverse the effects of it.