Fergie's Tech Blog

Hackers Targeted Syrian Media During Damascus Summit

Via Menassat.com.

Journalists covering the Arab summit from the Damascus media center on Saturday morning were astonished to find access to many official Syrian websites blocked. Access was denied to the official Syrian news agency, SANA, newspapers like al-Thawra and Tishrine and news websites such as Syria News, Sham Press and Zaman al-Wasel.

Rumors quickly spread among journalists that Syria was under a computer attack, probably originating in France, Turkey or Lebanon. Officials at the Ministry of Communications preferred not to divulge the source of the hacking, instead releasing an official statement saying, "The attack on the websites hosted by foreign companies came from outside the Syrian territories with no specific source."

The Ministry later said that the Telecommunications Institution and the Syrian Scientific Association were collaborating with the host companies to solve the problem and put the websites back online. Backup copies of the websites were being transported to the Syrian Scientific Association in anticipation of another attack.

posted by Fergie @ 4/02/2008 09:27:00 AM