The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) has struck again, this time hacking into the Telegraphs’ Facebook and Twitter accounts. On the Facebook page a post claimed that Prime Minister David Cameron had held a fundraiser ‘for the terrorists in Syria.’ This was then followed by the usual message from the Telegraphs twitter handle, ‘Syrian Electronic Army Was here.’ This attack follows a breach of the Financial Times’ twitter account on Friday and before that a breach on the social media platforms of the BBC, Al-Jazeera and The Guardian. Commenting on the attacks to the Telegraphs’ Facebook and Twitter accounts Wieland Alge, IT security pioneer, inventor of one of the most robust corporate firewalls and VP and General Manager EMEA, Barracuda Networks said:
This latest attack from the Syrian Electronic Army highlights the deplorable conduct of the media within the UK to keep their data confidential. The press have a moral obligation to inform, and this also means not allowing way-ward individuals to use their media as a platform for hate.
The most common explanation for a breach of this type to the Telegraph is through Social engineering - a process by which a hacker is able to gather information by fooling the user who holds the information.
The apparent ease at which the SEA have been able to hack into, not only the Telegraph’s but also the Financial Times, The Guardian and BBC’s social media platforms in the past highlights a clear lack of security knowledge amongst the press within the United Kingdom; an issue which must be addressed if we as patrons are to continue to hold the press in high regard.