FBI adds Syrian Electronic Army to cybercriminal wanted list

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) is now officially on the FBI's cybercriminal wanted list, ZDNet reports.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has officially placed the SEA on an advisory list following a string of attacks on media and government outlets.

The FBI's advisory includes basic information on the SEA, its known capabilities to cause damage, and documents some of the group's most high-profile cyberattacks.

The pro-Assad hacktivist group has taken responsibility for a number of cyberattacks, including compromising the Twitter feed of The Associated Press and other media outlets. When the AP's Twitter feed was taken over, the SEA posted a fake story stating that President Obama had been injured, causing drops in the stock market.

This year, the SEA has targeted The New York Times, The Washington Post and Twitter itself; taking advantage of weak security measures used by website hosts to redirect users to SEA-controlled websites.

“The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a pro-regime hacker group that emerged during Syrian anti-government protests in 2011, has been compromising high-profile media outlets in an effort to spread pro-regime propaganda. The SEA’s primary capabilities include spearphishing, Web defacements, and hijacking social media accounts to spread propaganda. Over the past several months, the SEA has been highly effective in compromising multiple high-profile media outlets,” the FBI said.