Syrian Electronic Army Hijacks Microsoft's Twitter Handle for Second Time in a Month
Just as Ricky Ricardo would often tell Lucille Ball in some manner or another, "Microsoft, you've got some explaining to do!" For the second time in less than two weeks, hackers representing the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) are taking credit for infiltrating Microsoft's Twitter account and posting messages warning people not to use the company's email services.
The messages are almost exactly the same as the ones posted on New Year's Day when the SEA hijacked Microsoft's Twitter and Skype accounts, along with Skype's Facebook page. Those initial tweets stayed online for over two hours and were retweeted over 8,200 times before Microsoft took back control of its account on the holiday. Many employees were likely on vacation at the time.
This time around, hackers infiltrated the Microsoft News Twitter account and also the software maker's official blog, which automatically redirected visitors to SEA's own propaganda website. In addition to redirects, hackers posted screenshots to Twitter of internal email exchanges between Microsoft's public relations team and Steve Clayton, the head honcho of Microsoft's corporate media platforms.
It's a little disturbing that Microsoft's accounts are being repeatedly hacked into in such a short time frame. However, it doesn't appear the SEA is out to expose Microsoft's lack of security for its accounts, but told The Verge that his was all a distraction "so we can success in our main mission."
The messages are almost exactly the same as the ones posted on New Year's Day when the SEA hijacked Microsoft's Twitter and Skype accounts, along with Skype's Facebook page. Those initial tweets stayed online for over two hours and were retweeted over 8,200 times before Microsoft took back control of its account on the holiday. Many employees were likely on vacation at the time.
This time around, hackers infiltrated the Microsoft News Twitter account and also the software maker's official blog, which automatically redirected visitors to SEA's own propaganda website. In addition to redirects, hackers posted screenshots to Twitter of internal email exchanges between Microsoft's public relations team and Steve Clayton, the head honcho of Microsoft's corporate media platforms.
It's a little disturbing that Microsoft's accounts are being repeatedly hacked into in such a short time frame. However, it doesn't appear the SEA is out to expose Microsoft's lack of security for its accounts, but told The Verge that his was all a distraction "so we can success in our main mission."
