Syrian Electronic Army hacks Forbes
Forbes readers encouraged to change their passwords
Business news outlet Forbes confirmed late Friday afternoon that it had been the target of a digital attack, one that appears to have been conducted by the Syrian Electronic Army.
The hackers reportedly gained access to the outlet’s publishing platform administration panel and defaced several pages on the Forbes website, and added an article under the headline, “Hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army.” The SEA temporarily hijacked several Twitter accounts associated with the outlet as well, according to Softpedia.
The SEA also claims to have published a database containing over a million records of Forbes users, though the news outlet did not confirm that the data had been posted online, according to recode.net.
A statement from Forbes on its Facebook page did meanwhile warn users to change their current passwords, and indicated that the outlet has notified law enforcement of the incident.
Security message: Forbes.com was targeted in a digital attack and our publishing platform was compromised. Users’ email addresses may have been exposed. The passwords were encrypted, but as a precaution, we strongly encourage Forbes readers and contributors to change their passwords on our system, and encourage them to change them on other websites if they use the same password elsewhere. We have notified law enforcement. We take this matter very seriously and apologize to the members of our community for this breach.
The hacking group posted a handful of tweets from its SEA Twitter account regarding the incident.
When asked why the hackers targeted Forbes, a contact claiming to be a spokesperson for the group told IBTimes UK, “Many articles against the SEA were posted on Forbes, also their hate for Syria is very clear and flagrant in their articles.”
UPDATE: Forbes edited its previous Facebook post to read as follows:
Forbes.com was targeted in a digital attack and our publishing platform was compromised.
The email address for anyone registered with Forbes.com may have been exposed. Please be wary of emails that purport to come from Forbes, as the list of email addresses may be used in phishing attacks.
The passwords were encrypted, but as a precaution, we will strongly encourage Forbes.com readers to change their passwords on our system once we make sign-on available again.
We have notified law enforcement. We take this matter very seriously and apologize to the members of our community for this breach.
(Featured image: Tweet from SEA claiming to be Forbes administration panel)
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Comments
I do like their taste in targets.