Its always quite funny to think that even the most respected people in the world, who have the most security, and possibly the biggest fan base worldwide can get their accounts hacked. Recently, president Obama had his social media accounts hacked. surprised? well i was! The political activist hackers of the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) are responsible for the hacks this time, on Obamas social media site. The SEA have posted numerous posts on the President’s Facebook and Twitter accounts directing users to YouTube videos uploaded by SEA, and to the SEA website itself. The hackers also posted an image of a Gmail inbox belonging to an employee of Organising for Action, an official promotional website for President Obama’s various political initiatives.
According to the news article, none of Obama’s accounts were seriously compromised, as they believe the way SEA carried out the hacks was seemingly unprofessional and unsophisticated. Their unsophisticated actions were compared to other high-profile attacks that have happened over the past few years, and are probably not a serious threat to humanity.
It was found that the SEA managed to get hold of the username and password of someone related to the website or account in question, and simply logs in with their credentials, rather than coding a special virus or decrypting critical communications, as most other hackers do.
often, these attacks on high-profile users of social media are highly visible, but they’re not the kind of hackers that will reveal state secrets or undermine the NSA. U.S. cybersecurity types are more worried about what they call “advanced persistent threats” such as state-sponsored hacker groups in China and Iran targeting military operations and critical infrastructure.
Therefore, the hacks done by SEA are not as big a threat than the media make them out to be.
What are your thoughts on hacking in general, and hacking of high-profile users suchs as President Obama?
When I read this, I was surprised too! With the rise of the internet and all the sensitive information on it, naturally also hackers would follow.
What I find interesting is the fact that they call it no serious treat and unprofessional. But if a group, according to the people who are in charge of America’s security,of unprofessionals where able to hack the presidents account and do these things with it, what could a professional group do?
Maybe now it did not pose any serious treat, but being able to talk in the name of the president through social media, could cause a lot more problems than it did now.