Financial Times Tech Blog, Twitter Accounts Hacked By Pro-Assad Syrian Electronic Army

A blog and various Twitter accounts maintained by the Financial Times were hacked on Friday by a group claiming loyalty to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in the latest cyberattack aimed at a major western media outlet.

A spokeswoman for the Financial Times confirmed the accounts had been hacked.

“Today various FT Twitter accounts and one FT blog (not more as previously stated) were compromised by hackers,” Ryann Gastwirth, a spokeswoman for the salmon-colored newspaper, said in a statement. “We have now secured those accounts and are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”

The Washington Post reported Friday that the Syrian Electronic Army claimed responsibility for hacking the FT. Last month, the pro-government group claimed responsibility for hacking an Associated Press Twitter feed. Other recent targets include National Public Radio, BBC, Al-Jazeera, E! Online and satirical newspaper The Onion.

Friday's security breach of the Financial Times was brief, but it spotlights the latest front for the Syria government forces: news agencies based in western countries, which have been uniformly opposed to the Damascus regime and, in varying degrees, supportive of the rebels.

Several western journalists have died while covering the conflict in Syria. Marie Colvin, a veteran war correspondent for London's Sunday Times, was killed in a blast at the outset of the war. Last year, Anthony Shadid, a New York Times correspondent who won two Pulitzer Prizes for international reporting, died following an asthma attack in Syria.