At approximately 6 a.m. GMT, Twitter, the popular micro-blogging site, was hacked and defaced by the Iranian Cyber Army. It’s back up again and seems to be functioning well!
As many will recall, Twitter’s prominence in Iran rose earlier this year during the election and the so called Green Revolution.
At the time, anti-government protesters used the tool to communicate with the outside world sharing images, news and more and gaining the sympathy of many Iranians living abroad. In Dubai, where I live and which is home to many Iranians, it was common to see cars with green flags showing support to the Green Revolution. This morning, users arriving at the Twitter website were greeted with the following image:
The text reads:
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.
Iran, as you may know, is on the US Embargo list, meaning that American companies aren’t allowed to do business in the country. Otherwise I’m not quite sure what this is meant to achieve! Now, knowing the history of Twitter in Iran, I can’t help but think that this is the work of a pro-Government group in Iran. Not good! UPDATE 1: The following message appeared on the Twitter blog:
DNS Disruption
As we tweeted a bit ago, Twitter’s DNS records were temporarily compromised tonight but have now been fixed. As some noticed, Twitter.com was redirected for a while but API and platform applications were working. We will update with more information and details once we’ve investigated more fully.
UPDATE 2: It appears that another website, mowjcamp, which appears to be an opposition news site, has also been hacked and defaced by the Iranian Cyber Army. If you’d like to reach the Iranian Cyber Army you can do so by email at: iranian.cyber.army@gmail.com Happy Tweeting! [Image courtesy of Jack Yan]
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.