Syrian Electronic Army hacks Daily Telegraph, LA Times and more

Image: Screenshot / Mashable

LONDON - Numerous publications have have their sites hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army, causing some visitors to be presented with a popup telling them 'you've been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army.'

In the UK, websites for The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, OK! magazine and the London Evening Standard were affected.

A part of our website run by a third-party was compromised earlier today. We've removed the component. No Telegraph user data was affected.

- The Telegraph (@Telegraph) November 27, 2014

The Independent reported that the hack hit their site using the Gigya comment platform. 'Hackers re-directed some users to their site or to display their messages, by exploiting the DNS entry - which translates URLs such as independent.co.uk into directions to the site - at GoDaddy, the site's domain registrar,' they said.

When Mashable tried to access the Los Angeles Times' site this message was displayed.

Image: Mashable / LA Times

The next screen to appear showed the SEA's crest.

Image: Screenshot / Mashable

The Syrian Electronic Army is a state-sponsored group operating under Bashar al-Assad's regime and has compromised websites before, hacking CNN back in January and disrupting PayPal and eBay in February among others. The Huffington Post, The New York Times, The Sun and The Sunday Times have all been affected.

Their Twitter account gave a clue to their motives.

Happy thanks giving, hope you didn't miss us! The press: Please don't pretend #ISIS are civilians. #SEA

- Syrian Electronic Army (@Official_SEA16) November 27, 2014

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