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Thursday, January 2, 2014
'Syrian Electronic Army' hacks Skype's Twitter and blog accounts
'Syrian Electronic Army' hacks Skype's Twitter and blog accounts
Hacking
group briefly takes over messaging service's social media accounts to
allege sale of data to governments and publish Steve Ballmer contact
details - but Skype accounts unaffected
The 'Syrian Electronic Army' hacked Skype's
Twitter account and its blog and Facebook on 1 January 2014 Photograph:
/public domain
The self-styled "Syrian Electronic Army" (SEA) hacking group has
embarrassed Microsoft's Skype messaging service after taking over its
Twitter account, Facebook site and blog, and using them to post claims
that they sell data to governments.
It also posted what appeared to be the contact details for outgoing
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer on its Twitter account, saying "You can thank Microsoft for monitoring your accounts/email using this details".
No actual Skype accounts or passwords seem to have been affected by the hack, though.
Skype managed to regain control of the account, and in a statement,
later acknowledged the hack: "You may have noticed our social media
properties were targeted today. No user info was compromised. We're
sorry for the inconvenience."
Security consultant Graham Cluley suggested that the Skype team had
used the same passwords for its Twitter account and blog system,
enabling the SEA to take over both. Of the SEA's takeover of the
Facebook page, he said it "adds more fuel to the fire that Skype screwed
up by committing the cardinal sin of using the same password for
different sites," he said. Skype's blog was hacked by the Syrian
Electronic Army hacking group to post allegations about data sales.
Photograph: /Public domain
Prism warning
The hackers, who are sympathetic to the rule of Syrian's president
Bashar Al-Assad, gained control of the blog system used by Skype and
posted a blog entry headlined "Don't use Microsoft emails (hotmail,
outlook). They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to
governments".
That post - since deleted - seems to be a reference to the claims made following the Snowden disclosures that Microsoft and Skype have been targeted in the Prism program by the US National Security Agency (NSA) for data collection about people using the company's services. Microsoft bought Skype in May 2011 for $8.5bn, though the NSA seems to have targeted Skype before that.
Skype is under investigation by Luxembourg's data protection commissioner over its alleged cooperation in the Prism program.
The SEA has targeted a number of high-profile media organisations,
including the Associated Press, the Guardian, New York Times, and
Washington Post, to take over Twitter accounts belonging to them. Its
methods tend to be consistent, using "phishing" techniques to grab
passwords from large shared groups, and then exploiting the control of
accounts. But it has never been known to carry out any malicious
large-scale attacks.
The SEA has seen its Twitter account repeatedly deleted for hacking;
the account it is now using has only been active since the end of July
2013.
The SEA is believed to have a handful of members, some based in Dubai, rather than operating from within Syria itself.
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