The Iranian Cyber Army
Twitter has been hacked this morning by a group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army, which have defaced it with a message in English and Farsi, now removed. When translated, it read:
Iranian Cyber Army
THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMY
iRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.COM
U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don’t, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To….
NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA?
WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST
Take Care.
All this tells us a couple of things.
Firstly, websites need to make sure they’re secure. This isn’t the first #twitterSecurityFail.
Secondly, there’s all sorts of different groups with an axe to grind that can use the relative anonymity of a web attack to get their message across in a high-profile way. I don’t know whether this is a response to the use of Twitter by dissidents during the disputed Iranian election, but it makes it clear that Twitter could be taken down if it were to be used like that again.
Thirdly, and most importantly, we should thank the ‘Iranian Cyber Army’; hopefully people will start to get the message that stuff on the internet – and not just the web – is vulnerable to attack. Estonia and Georgia have learnt this; we need to make sure we understand what happens if there is a more serious attack that taking down a social networking site for a few hours.
