Currently hacking cases in the US has been the headline on weekly news reports. The US army has temporarily taken down its website after a hacking attack. It says an element of the army.mil website was compromised and preventative measures had to be taken to ensure there was no breach of data. The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) which supports President Bashar al-Assad – says it was behind the attack. Last week, the US said Chinese hackers had attacked federal government computers and may have compromised the records of four million employees.
China denied any involvement and called the allegations “not responsible, and counterproductive”.
On Monday, US Brig Gen Malcolm Frost, the chief of the army public affairs, said “the army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of army data by taking down the website temporarily”. Screen grabs posted on social media earlier showed messages on the website. One of them read: “Your commanders admit they are training the people they have sent you to die fighting.” The army.mil website is the shop front for the US military and having to take it offline is embarrassing. It comes just five months after US Central Command had to temporarily close its YouTube and Twitter accounts after what was described at the time as cyber vandalism – with pro-Islamic State messages being posted.
Earlier in the year, US President Barack Obama acknowledged that the nation and the economy faced enormous vulnerabilities from such attacks reports BBC. The SEA is a hacker group that has claimed in the past to disrupt major news websites, including the New York Times, CBS News, the Washington Post and the BBC. The SEA website launched its website in May 2011 stating the groupās mission: to attack the enemies of the Syrian government, mainly those who āfabricatedā stories about the Syrian civil war. They wrote that they were not officially affiliated with the government but were a group of Syrian youths says FOX NEWS.
In April 2013, the SEA successfully hacked the APās Twitter page, sending out a false message that there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Obama had been injured.
Kenya has also fallen victim of hacking. In December Last year Aljazeera reported the police arrested 77 Chinese hackers who were preparing to raid the country’s communication systems. Another case the Kenya Defense Forces twitter account was hacked, Deputy President William Rutoās twitter account and the ministry of Immigration and Registration of Personsā website were hacked by the same group of people. In March 2014 the Ministry of transport website was hacked by a Turkish group of Muslims claiming the government does not respect Muslims.
