Microsoft’s Twitter account was hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army just after the attacks on Xbox Twitter and Instagram, right as our calendars turned over to 2014. The Syrian Electronic Army hacked the Microsoft News Twitter account and posted a tweet stating that the company sells the user data to the government.
“Don’t use Microsoft emails(hotmail,outlook),They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments. #SEA @Official_SEA16,” the message read.
This is the second time that Microsoft’s accounts were hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army. It had hacked Microsoft’s Xbox Twitter account, Skype’s Twitter and Facebook accounts on New Year Eve’s. Microsoft, which owns Skype, had to issue a warning to discourage people from using Microsoft emails following the New Year’s Day hack.
After attacking Microsoft’s Twitter News account, The “Official Microsoft Blog,” blog was also hacked and displayed SEA messages, and redirected to the hacking group’s website for at least some users.
In response to the cyber attacks a Microsoft spokesperson stated, “Microsoft is aware of targeted cyber attacks 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.”
Recently popular messaging Snapchat was hacked and more than 4.6 Million users id’s were leaked online. Snapchat has now released an updated version to prevent future attacks. The app now allows users to opt out of ‘Find Friends’ feature that stores the usernames and phone numbers. The company has even set up an email address so white-hat hackers can use to notify the company of potential exploits: security@snapchat.com.
Source: Mashable