al-Jazeera mobile hacked
September 10, 2012
The mobile service of al-Jazeera Arabic has been hacked. Three texts with fake news alerts were sent via the broadcaster’s SMS service.
A breaking news statement on the site said “the message claiming that [Qatar]’s prime minister has been the target of an assassination attempt… is false and was a result of a hack”. A pro-Syrian group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) claimed responsibility for the attack.
It is the fourth such incident since the conflict in Syria intensified. Last week, al-Jazeera Arabic’s website was defaced, with a Syrian flag posted on the front page.
In February, the SEA said it had been behind an attack on al-Jazeera English’s website, and in July the same group gained access to the organisation’s Twitter account and began posting stories denouncing the Syrian opposition fighters.
Qatar has been supportive of the Syrian rebels fighting against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and al-Jazeera has covered the Syrian conflict extensively since it began.