Syrian Electronic Army claims Obama social media hijacking

The Syrian Electronic Army has been up to its old tricks again, this time claiming to have infiltrated president Barack Obama’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts, and re-election web site.

A series of tweets were sent from @BarackObama account and updates were made to the president’s Facebook account on Monday linking to a YouTube video from the pro-Assad hacktivist collective.

Rather than hack the accounts themselves, those responsible appear to have achieved their aims by compromising URL shortening service ShortSwitch, researchers at Symantec said.

The website donate.barackobama.com was temporarily redirected to the Syrian Electronic Army site, according to The Hacker News.

Some tweets from the SEA’s official account seemed to confirm the reports.

SOURCE: theregister.co.uk