Twitter Hacked by “Iranian Cyber Army”

Twitter was hacked for a short time on early Friday morning, December 18. The attackers called themselves the “Iranian Cyber Army.” Despite the disruption, service was soon restored.

People whom tried accessing Twitter durring the time it was hacked, around 10 PM SL time. were redirected to a website displaying a green flag with Arabic script reading “Ya Hussein,” probably meaning a grandson of the prophet Mohammed, and a suggestion that the hackers were most likely Shiite Muslims, whom are mostly in Iran. Blue script near the flag read “Hezbollah is victorious.” There was also a poem with further words of defiance.

By 11:30 AM, users were able to access Twitter again, and on the official page a message was posted, "Twitter's DNS (domain name system) records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed."

Last summer, Twitter found itself involved in Iranian politics when those protesting the disputed election used it and other social networking sites to both make reports and broadcast pictures. As the authorites had been trying to shut off media access to the dissidents, Twitter proved to be a thorn in their side.

Some speculate the attackers targeted Twitter in retaliation. But this is just the latest of a number of similar troubles. In August, Twitter was knocked offline for two hourrs due to an attack on a Russian hacker. The service has also been the target of scam artists.


Source: BBC, CNN