President Barack Obama’s social media presence fell prey to the Syrian Electronic Army on Monday after the group hacked the link shortener used to post tweets to the President’s Twitter.
A link posted on the President’s Twitter account, @BarackObama, was intended to direct followers to a story from The Washington Post regarding immigration reform. But instead, those who clicked on the link were directed to a YouTube video titled “Syria facing terrorism.” The Syrian Electronic Army claimed responsibility for the breach in a Twitter post.
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We are watching you, Obama Bin Laden #SEA #SyrianElectronicArmy pic.twitter.com/N0M7cGIOwq
— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA16) October 28, 2013
Thank you Obama for redirecting people to the #SEA website http://t.co/y9o9y6uU5t #SyrianElectronicArmy
— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA16) October 28, 2013
Obama doesn’t have any ethical issues with spying on the world, so we took it upon ourselves to return the favor. #SEA
— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA16) October 28, 2013
Thanks to our operation, Twitter now blocks Obama’s dangerous propaganda links. #SEA pic.twitter.com/6V8g0j5jzL
— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA16) October 28, 2013
We accessed many Obama campaign emails accounts to assess his terrorism capabilities. They are quite high #SEA pic.twitter.com/ARgGLX8IjN
— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA16) October 28, 2013
The pro-Bashar al-Assad group did not hack President Obama’s actual social media accounts, but rather just the link shortener service used by Organizing for Action and BarackObama.com
“All the links that Barack Obama account tweeted it and post it on Facebook were redirected to a video showing the truth about Syria,” a Syrian Electronic Army spokesperson wrote in an email to Mashable.
The affected links have since been fixed.
According to Mashable, the Syrian Electronic Army gained access to the links by hacking Suzanne Snurpus’, one of the administrators for BarackObama.com, email address. In doing so, the group gained access to the site’s control panel.
The Syrian Electronic Army also hacked a page on President Obama’s campaign website, The Blaze reported Sunday. When users clicked the page, donate.barackobama.com, they were redirected to a website belonging to the hacking group.
“Hacked by the SEA,” the page read, according to screenshots taken by The Blaze.
The donation page, though, is not one used recently. Instead, Organizing for Action uses the website contribute.barackobama.com to solicit donations.
In the last few months, the Syrian Electronic Army has gained notoriety for hacking several prominent media sites. The group claimed responsibility for hacking The New York Times website in August and Twitter.com’s domain registration the same month.
