Syrian Electronic Army Hacks Microsoft Twitter Accounts and Websites

A hacker group known as The Syrian Electronic Army took over Microsoft's Twitter account along with several of its websites recently in an attempt to punish the company and further the hacking group's message. The SEA supports Syria and the country's controversial leader, President Bashar al-Assad.

The SEA began their assault on Microsoft by taking over the Microsoft News Twitter account, announcing that they took over the account in a message that has since been deleted. The SEA also posted a photo showing that the Microsoft News account was retweeting messages put out by the group's own Twitter account. The group also managed to seize control of the official Xbox Twitter account as well. The messages posted by the group on the Microsoft News account are available on Mashable. In addition, a representative from the Syrian Electronic Group sent a statement to the website explaining why they were targeting Microsoft.

"Microsoft is monitoring emails accounts and selling the data for the American intelligence and other governments. And we will publish more details and documents that prove it. Microsoft is not our enemy but what they are doing affected the SEA," the SEA wrote, according to Mashable. 

This statement is backed up by some of the messages the hackers put on Microsoft's Twitter account as the group posted messages telling people not to use Microsoft email programs because Microsoft sold the information found on a user's email account to the government. Later, the SEA posted a picture of an alleged internal Microsoft email discussing the cyber attacks; the validity of the email has been called into question.

Later, the group managed to take over the official Microsoft Blog and post pro-Syria messages. Microsoft sent a statement about the attacks to Mashable saying that no customer data was stolen by the group.

"Microsoft is aware of targeted cyberattacks that temporarily affected the Xbox Support and Microsoft News Twitter accounts. The accounts were quickly reset and we can confirm that no customer information was compromised," wrote Microsoft in a statement.

In a second statement, Microsoft addressed some of the criticism the SEA leveled against the company, admitting that occasionally Microsoft must give the United States government user information.

"We're actively investigating issues and are focused on protecting our employees and corporate network. Microsoft is sometimes obligated to comply with legal orders from governments around the world and provides customer data only in response to specific, targeted, legal demands."

Microsoft has now regained control of all their affected accounts.