Syrian Electronic Army’s latest hack affects the Washington Post, CNN and Time magazine’s websites

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) seem to be everywhere at the moment and their latest hacking conquest has affected the websites of the Washington Post, CNN and Time magazine, placing links on the site redirecting readers to the SEA’s website for a short period of time.

The redirection was due to a security breach at Outbrain, a company that provides link recommendations for all three sites. A spokesperson for the group said that their staff had been fooled by a spoof email that claimed to be from the company’s chief executive. Outbrain immediately took their service down once they realised what had happened, and then took a further seven hours to ensure that everything was fixed and working correctly before they relaunched their site.

For the Washington Post, this attack marks the SEA’s second targeted attempt at the paper in the space of a week. The publication’s managing editor Emilio Garcia-Ruiz claimed that, ‘A few days ago, the Syrian Electronic Army, allegedly, subjected Post newsroom employees to a sophisticated phishing attack to gain password information.’ At present, however, all three affected websites believe that nothing else was altered on their pages other than the content of the links.

Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor at Sophos, condemned the attack and warned that it was the same kind of technique used by hackers attempting to get malware out into the web. He claimed that, ‘In this case it may only be sending you to the Syrian Electronic Army's website but it could also be used to install viruses or copy cookies to try and later impersonate a visitor.’

Douglas McCabe, an industry consultant from Enders Analysis, warned that the attack was symptomatic of a wider challenge facing the media: ‘"It is a reminder that while digital news organisations have lower distribution costs, those of technology and security are greater. The technology sophistication required to protect sites is continuously growing. The commercial and editorial implications of down periods during major news events are clearly far-reaching.’

If you’re worried about the security of your personal computer, then using a VPN service can give you extra peace of mind. A VPN acts as a barrier between hackers and your personal data when you’re surfing the web, which means that your private information should stay safe.