14 DAY TRIAL // The other week, Qatar's state-owned television station was hacked, with false information being planted there. Now, it is revealed that this may be the work of what the tech world calls "script kiddies."
The hack of the Qatar News Agency and Qatar's television station was "extremely easy to carry out," sources told Motherboard. It seems the security they had set in place was terrible, which allowed the attack to occur with very little effort on the hacker's part.
The situation this hack created was quite dire. On May 23, the Qatar News Agency quoted the current Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamin Al Thani, as saying that Iran was an Islamic power that could not be ignored. Given the tensions in the region, this comment sparked quite an uprising in nearby countries.
The problem was that the Emir had said nothing of the like and the information had been planted by the hackers. The hackers took things a step further and also hacked the news agency's Twitter feed, posting false statements attributed to Qatar's foreign minister.
Qatar's news agency had low security
Motherboard quotes a source familiar with the hack who said that the news agency could have been "owned by random script kiddies forever" given how abysmal their security was.
While the hack itself wasn't that much of an effort, it put the attackers in control of the news agency's entire web server, content management system, and all social media accounts.
The country's communications office in the government refuted the statement as false, but the damage was done. Qatar's relationship with the neighboring countries is now more strained than ever. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt all withdrew their ambassadors, while other countries are also thinking of following suit. Flights from these countries towards Qatar have also been barred.