14 DAY TRIAL // A few months ago, Vice published an article revealing the identities of alleged members of the Syrian Electronic Army. At the time, the pro-Assad hackers threatened the publication, and now the threats have materialized.
The Syrian Electronic Army has hacked Vice.com and deleted the article titled “Is This the Leader of the Syrian Electronic Army?” They’ve also altered the website so that visitors of vice.com/en_us would be redirected to sea.sy, the hacktivists’ website.
“Your website was hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army. This time we just deleted the article that you claimed in it that you exposed “Th3Pro” identity. But you didn’t. You published names of innocent people instead,” the hackers wrote in an article published on Vice.com.
The hackers threatened Vice in late August 2013. They claim to have gained access to Vice’s systems two days after the article about the identities of alleged members had been published. However, they say they’ve postponed the attack until now because at the time, Vice was aware of the fact that they might be targeted.
So how did they gain access to Vice.com? According to the hacktivists, they’ve breached a number of email accounts, including one belonging to the website’s developer. That’s how they’ve managed to take control of the site’s content management system.
Less than two hours after the Syrian Electronic Army announced the attack, Vice restored its website and deleted the article posted by the hackers. The article about the identities of SEA members also appears to have been restored.
The SEA has told E Hacking News that they’ve also breached Vice’s MailChimp account and sent out an email to 33,000 of the site’s subscribers.
So far, Vice hasn’t issued any statement regarding the incident.