The hacktivists warn club managers no to take Qatari money

Feb 19, 2014 09:30 GMT  ·  By

Official Twitter accounts of the Spanish club FC Barcelona, which have millions of followers each, have been hijacked by the Syrian Electronic Army. The impacted accounts are @FCBarcelona, @FCBarcelona_es and @FCBarcelona_cat.

The hackers posted a couple of messages on the hijacked accounts, including one that read “Special Hi to @RealMadrid” and one that revealed the reasons behind the attack.

“Dear FC Barcelona management, don’t let the Qatari money funds you, it’s full of blood and kill (sic),” the hackers wrote on the hijacked accounts.

The tweets have been removed and FC Barcelona representatives have not made any statements regarding the incident.

Interestingly, the Syrian Electronic Army said the tweets were removed by Twitter, not the football club’s social media team.

It’s uncertain how the Syrian hacktivists breached the accounts, but the most likely scenario is that they’ve used phishing emails to trick staff into handing over their credentials for the Twitter accounts or a service associated with them.