Categories: HackingSecuritySocial Networks

Reuters blogging platform hacked, the critical role of information

In this day my blog has dedicated a great attention to the security of social media, explaining the importance of new communication networks. Today the information is synonymous with power, due this consideration is critical develop the proper processes for its management.

To acquire information today we infiltrate social networks, we attack forums and social media platform to intimidate the adversary, we develop powerful too for the global surveillance. The information represents the gold of our time, a treasure that must be preserved against any kind of attacks.

Once made this premises it’s licit expect that on line information agencies and their communication platforms are considerable as privileged targets of cyber attacks.

Last in order of time was Thomson Reuters that has announced that its blogging platform has been hacked last Friday and a false story regarding an alleged interview with a Syrian rebel leader was posted.

The agency has declared in an official statement:

“Reuters.com was a target of a hack on Friday,”

“Our blogging platform was compromised and fabricated blog posts were falsely attributed to several Reuters journalists.”

Actually there are no news regarding the authors of data breach that has caused the temporary interruption of the blogging service to fix the vulnerability exploited.

The fake news reports that during an “interview” to the head of the Free Syrian Army, Riad al-Assad. Al-Assad, he announced his forces were pulling back from the northern province of Aleppo after fighting with the Syrian Army.

The post was not the only one published, another one reported that rebels have received from Libya chemical weapons to use in Syria.

There are no sure responsibilities but many experts believe that the news have been posted by hackers linked to President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

The same Free Syrian Army declared:

“(It) was fabricated by the regime, as it seems the news agency was hacked,”

Similar events could appear as not important but I consider very seriously an attack to a news agency, we must consider that in a chaotic scenario where the dissent is high fake news could start dangerous mechanism and some situation could became irreparable.

The communication channels have to be considered critical in every cyber strategy and after the events seen during the Arab Spring and Russian elections is natural that group of hackers, maybe state sponsored, surely politically motivated will increase their attacks against the vector of freedom.

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.