14 DAY TRIAL // The Syrian Electronic Army has hijacked the Twitter account of yet another major media organization. This time, the victim is E! Online, the popular celebrity gossip and entertainment news provider.
The hackers claim to have breached not only E! Online’s Twitter account, but also its SMS service, which allegedly has over 33,000 subscribers.
From the hijacked accounts, the Syrian Electronic Army published several fake tweets, including one according to which Justin Bieber admitted being gay.
“E! News BREAKING: Exclusive: Justin Bieber to E!online: I’m a gay,” the tweet read.
In addition, the hackers also sent a message to US President Barack Obama.
“[Expletive] Barack Obama via Syrian Electronic Army,” they wrote.
“This account @eonline was compromised and some incorrect information was sent out. We're working with Twitter now to fix this,” E! Online wrote after recovering the account.
Although E! Online has regained access to the account, of the over 5 million followers it had before being hijacked, it currently has just over 200. It’s likely that they’re still working with Twitter on recovering the followers.
In the meantime, Twitter keeps suspending the Syrian Electronic Army’s accounts. The hackers say that the social media website even attempted to block the MAC address of one of their laptops.
“Twitter Security team thinks that it's enough #twitterfail,” the hackers wrote.
In a recent interview with Vice, one of the Syrian Electronic Army’s members highlighted that they’re not operating on behalf of the Syrian government.
He explained that the government is proud of their work because they’re “doing the right thing and defending the country.”
Last week, the Syrian Electronic Army managed to hijack 11 Twitter accounts belonging to the Guardian newspaper.
Before that, they targeted two Twitter accounts of the Associated Press. A tweet they posted about an explosion at the White House was so credible that it even influenced the stock market.