It’s unnerving to see the anomaly dominating the picture at right (and the real world market value loss) and find out it was the result of a single bad tweet. But that’s exactly what happened earlier this week when the Syrian Electronic Army, a pro-Assad organization, hacked the Associated Press’ Twitter account and falsely tweeted about explosions at the White House and an injured President Obama. Though the adverse market impact is unique to this latest event, it’s not the first time that the pro-Syrian government hacker outfit has targeted a digital property related to a media company:
Timeline of Syrian Electronic Army Hacks on Media Companies
Click for interactive view
Their list of successful hacks against media entities during the last two years is long and distinguished including both Western and Arab media outlets. Examples – note: not comprehensive – of notable incidents prior to the recent AP incident include:
- January 2012: Takedown of the Al Jazeera website
- April 2012: Hacked Al Arabiya social media accounts and spread false information about an explosion in Qatar as well as the removal of PM and Foreign Minister.
- Sky News (February 2013) and BBC (March 2013) social media accounts hacked.
You can use the timeline above as a building block for your own analysis (share with us what you find, we’d love to see an example!), or contact Recorded Future to discuss more sophisticated possibilities around web intelligence on threat indicators and emerging issues related to cyber security.