Syrian hackers hijack Channel 4 News website

Pro-Assad hackers post fake news article on Jon Snow's blog

Channel 4 Television has become the latest victim of hackers from the Syrian Electronic Army, with the broadcaster the subject of an attack from hackers who purport to support Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.

The hackers took over the blog of Channel 4 news reader Jon Snow, posting a fabricated article about a nuclear attack by rebels on the Syrian state, part of which was captured by security blogger Graham Cluley.

The Syrian Electronic Army has claimed responsibility for the cyber-attack and has posted what it claims to be the administration panel for the Channel 4 blog, which apparently is run on Wordpress.

It's thought that hackers gained access to the blog because Channel 4 is using an out-of-date version of Wordpress, which is vulnerable to attacks. However, it has also been suggested that the administrator could have been the victim of a phishing attack.

At the time of writing, the blog is still down and in its place is an apology accompanied by an image of characters from Channel 4's sitcom The IT Crowd.

The Syrian Electronic Army has regularly targeted media organisations, with The Guardian newspaper among the organisations that have been victims of the Assad supporters.

Earlier this year, News International (now known as News UK) chief information security officer (CISO) Amar Singh warned that every nation is engaging in or sponsoring cyber attacks.

"One thing I can definitely confirm is I speak to several anti-malware device CISOs, and all of them have a similar message where it's almost every nation doing it. Literally, almost every nation is engaging in some kind of exploratory or retaliatory attack," Singh told Computing.

"Whichever way you look at it, there is hardly any nation of any size not either directly or indirectly sponsoring some kind of cyber warfare, or whatever you want to call it."