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Syria cyber attacks

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Abhigna
New Update

CALIFORNIA, USA: According to FireEye today, as Western intervention in the Syrian conflict is fast approaching, the phenomenon of the world's patriotic hackers continues to grow, with the pro-government Syrian Electronic Army believed responsible for attacks on Twitter and the New York Times.

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In 1982, following a previous Syrian uprising in the city of Hama, the government obliterated parts of the city with artillery fire and killed thousands of civilians. But, according to English writer and journalist Robert Fisk, because the government had cut all telephone and road communication with the city it was many weeks before the extent of the atrocity was discovered.

The difference between 1982 and 2013 is the Internet. Today, streaming news, social media, and hacker groups are available to help understand what is happening all over the world. Therefore, all battlegrounds, including the Syrian revolution, now have a cyber dimension whose impact is difficult to predict. Syria has been home to a few of the world's most spectacular cyber attacks to date.

The attacks on Twitter and the Times are further confirmation of the hacking prowess of the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA). There are more serious SEA takedowns of international communications websites such as True Caller, Tango, and Viber, which could give Syrian intelligence access to the communications of millions of people.

Website defacements and Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks are more about image and propaganda, but the ubiquity of the World Wide Web and the amplification power of computer networks guarantee that information operations are more important than ever.

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