14 DAY TRIAL // It’s the Reuters incident all over again. Hackers have breached Amnesty International’s LiveWire blog and published fake stories, including one about the US, Qatar and Turkey funding and arming Syrian rebels.
“Amnesty researchers have for the first time since the beginning of the uprising conducted a research mission inside Syria. The full report reveals the shocking details of the crimes against humanity committed by the Syrian rebels and the devastating impact on Syrian families,” the fake report (via Oksana Boyko) read.
Amnesty International immediately removed the false stories and issued a statement to clarify the incident.
“Amnesty International takes this matter seriously. As soon as we became aware of the security breach, the fake posts were removed and steps have now been taken to secure the security of this part of Amnesty.org,” Amnesty representatives said.
“It should be noted that the site that was hacked is a Wordpress based blog, separate to the rest of Amnesty International's digital infrastructure. This is a site used by Amnesty International staff to tell human rights stories. It does not carry sensitive data,” they added.
Similar to the Reuters incident – which also involved the posing of false news about Syria – it appears that an outdated WordPress installation allowed the hackers to breach the website.
This isn’t the first time when Amnesty International is a target of cybercriminal activities. Back in December 2011, we reported that the site was hacked and altered to serve a piece of malware to its visitors.
A similar incident occurred this year in May when Amnesty International UK was found to host a version of the Ghost RAT, a tool utilized in numerous malicious operations because it allows attackers to steal files, emails, passwords and other valuable information from the victims’ computers.