14 DAY TRIAL // A couple of days ago, The New York Times revealed that the FBI started warning organizations about spear phishing emails sent out by the Syrian Electronic Army. The pro-Assad hacktivist group is denying the allegations.
According to The New York Times, members of the media, including employees of the publication, received malicious emails containing links that apparently led to CNN articles on the Syrian conflict. The links led to Google phishing pages.
This tactic was used in the past by the Syrian Electronic Army to compromise the systems and online accounts of various high-profile media organizations, including The New York Times. However, on this occasion, the hackers say they don’t have anything to do with the emails in question.
“Contrary to reports, we have already hacked the NY Times and there's little point revisiting them. These are false accusations by the FBI,” members of the hacker group wrote on Twitter.
“Why would we attack them again?” Th3Pr0, a member of the Syrian Electronic Army, told Mashable reporter Lorenzo Franceschi Bicchierai.
Back in August, the SEA managed to hijack the domains of The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Twitter and others after hacking the systems of Australia-based Internet company Melbourne IT.
A couple of weeks later, the FBI issued a memo to warn organizations regarding the hacker group’s attack techniques. The alert highlighted the Melbourne IT attack, and the one that targeted the Twitter account of The Associated Press.
The attack on AP’s Twitter account is considered one of SEA’s most successful operations. That’s because a fake tweet about a bombing at the White House posted from the hijacked account impacted the stock market for a short period.