Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Syrian hackers attack western media

In 2011 when I was writing The Universal Machine I searched for a topical example of demonstrators using social media to publicise their protests. I chose the Syrian uprising as the latest example of the Arab Spring uprisings, little thinking that two years later this tragic conflict would still be raging. I also wrote about the rise of state-sponsored hacking, using China and North Korea as examples. Now the Guardian reports that Syrian pro-Assad hackers are attacking western targets. The Syrian Electronic Army has hacked the twitter accounts of the BBBC, France 24 TV, National Public Radio and Associated Press in the United States, al-Jazeera, the government of Qatar, and Sepp Blatter, the president of football's governing body Fifa. In one hack they claimed via twitter that a bomb had exploded in the White House and that President Obama had been injured.  It really does seem as the next war will be fought in cyberspace.
  Incidentally Twitter recently announced that it was going to start using two-factor authentication. It seems like they should hurry this up.

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