Syrian hackers claim to hack Obama's Twitter account
For a short time on Monday, the website and Twitter account of BarackObama.com were breached by a group of hackers going by the name Syrian Electronic Army.
Web links posted from the Twitter account @BarackObama were redirected to a YouTube account belonging to a user named "Syrian truth," which posts violent scenes what appears to be Syria's ongoing war.
A Twitter account belonging to the Syrian Electronic Army tweeted several anti-Obama messages, including: "Obama doesn't have any ethical issues with spying on the world, so we took it upon ourselves to return the favor."
The non-profit group Organizing for Action manages both BarackObama.com and @BarackObama, and is not affiliated with the official White House Twitter account or WhiteHouse.gov.
A spokesperson for Twitter told CBSNews.com that Organizing for Action's third-party link shortening service was hacked. Organizing for Action gave a similar statement to The Huffington Post, adding that the Twitter account itself was never compromised.
According to the Daily Beast, the Syrian Electronic Army said it was able to alter the Twitter links by gaining access to shortswitch.com and Organizing for Action email accounts.
On its Twitter account, the Syrian Electronic Army posted a screenshot of an email inbox of what appears to be a site administrator for BarackObama.com.
An Organizing for Action worker named Suzanne Snurpus told Quartz that several of the non-profit group's email addresses had been compromised, but that all passwords had been changed and an extra layer of login security has been added.
It's unclear how the hackers may have gained access to the account, but they have previously used a technique called spearphishing -- using personalized messages to trick a victim into trusting the source of the email.
The Syrian Electronic Army has previously claimed responsibility for attacking the websites or Twitter accounts of the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Agence France-Press, 60 Minutes, CBS News,National Public Radio, The Associated Press, Al-Jazeera English and the BBC.
