Visitors to The Washington Post’s mobile site Thursday afternoon were being greeted by several messages purporting to come from the Syrian Electronic Army, a pro-Bashar al Assad hacking collective that has raided several news organizations in recent months.
Upon visiting the Washington Post’s website, readers were bombarded with a series of messages, including: “You’ve been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army,” and “the media is always lying.”
News of the hacking was first tweeted by Politico’s Hadas Gold.
The Washington Post is the latest U.S. news organization to be targeted by the Syrian hacking collective. In January, David Uberti reported for Columbia Journalism Review that the SEA also attacked The New York Times’ website and seized The Associated Press’ Twitter account.
Update, 1:35 p.m.: A spokesperson from The Washington Post says the newspaper is looking into the incident.
Update, 1:43 p.m.: The mobile site now appears to be working normally.
Update, 3 p.m.: Shailesh Prakash, chief information officer at The Washington Post, says no customer information was affected by the incident:
The Washington Post’s mobile homepage and some section fronts on the mobile site were redirected to a site that claimed to be run by the Syrian Electronic Army. The situation has been resolved and no customer information was impacted.
