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Syrian Electronic Army defaces Washington Post, claiming ‘media always lying’

Hackers sympathetic to president Assad protest press coverage of war.

By Jimmy Nicholls

The Syrian Electronic Army attacked the mobile website of The Washington Post on Thursday evening, in its latest protest against Western coverage of the civil war in Syria.

The hacking group, which supports the regime of president Bashar al-Assad, defaced the mobile site with a pop-up message informing visitors, among other things, that they had been "hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army".

It also alleged that Saudi Arabia and its allies "are killing hundreds" of Yemenis every day, that the US government "is training the terrorists to kill more Syrians" and that "the media is always lying".

Brian Fung, a technology report for The Washington Post, said: "The roughly 30-minute disruption occurred when hackers infiltrated a Washington Post content-delivery partner.

"That provider, Instart Logic, is currently investigating the break-in."

The Syrian Electronic Army has been active since at least 2012 in defacing Western media groups it sees as hostile to the Assad regime, which is currently fighting against several rebel groups and fighters from Islamic State, a terrorist insurgency.

Last year the cyber-gang attacked Reuters, the Sun and the Sunday Times, and earlier this year French newspaper Le Monde reported that it had been targeted by the group.

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Speaking about Thursday’s attack on The Washington Post, the paper’s chief information officer Shailesh Prakash said: "The situation has been resolved and no customer information was impacted."

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