14 DAY TRIAL // The official Angry Birds website (angrybirds.com) has been allegedly hacked. Hackers of the Syrian Electronic Army say that a friend of theirs hacked and defaced the website and there’s a zone-h.org mirror to prove it.
However, no one appears to have seen the Angry Birds websites while it was presumably hacked and the zone-h.org mirror is still unverified.
I’ve sent emails to both Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds, and zone-h.org to see if they can clarify the situation.
In an interview we’ve had a few months ago with zone-h.org representatives, they claimed that defacement mirrors could not be faked. If the mirror is approved, the attack on the Angry Birds website is probably real.
Angrybirds.com has been targeted after a number of media companies published reports about the NSA and the GCHQ harvesting sensitive personal data with the aid of mobile applications, including Angry Birds.
Rovio has denied collaborating with any intelligence agencies. On the other hand, the company admits that the surveillance can be conducted through third-party ad networks.
Update. Rovio representatives have confirmed for digitoday.fi that the Angry Birds website had been briefly defaced. However, researchers from F-Secure say the attack is likely a DNS hijack, not an actual breach of angrybirds.com.
Update 2. Rovio has confirmed for Softpedia that the Angry Birds website had been defaced. Zone-h.org representatives have also confirmed that the mirror of the defacement is valid. Additional information can be found in our follow-up post.