A group of anonymous hackers sympathetic to the regime of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is causing havoc with the world's media.
They call themselves the Syrian Electronic Army, and they're devoted to attacking sites they deem defamatory to the Syrian government.
The group has attacked or sabotaged the web sites of Twitter accounts of the BBC, Syrian satellite broadcaster Orient TV, Dubai-based al-Arabia TV, National Public Radio, Human Rights Watch, The Onion and the Financial Times.
The group is a distinctly separate entity from Anonymous, but users protect their identities just as fiercely.
The SEA appears to be either backed by — or at least enjoy the support of — Assad, who is currently fighting a civil war for control of his country.
As such, they're a major threat.
They're media-hacking culture jammers.
The SEA isn't afraid to go hands-on. In fact, it's successfully hacked the Financial Times, the Telegraph, and has gained illegal access to a number of corporate Twitter accounts. It uses these resources to attack sites that paint Syria in an unflattering light (or sites that it thinks are connected to someone doing so).
About 122 web sites have been attacked by the SEA, according to the OpenNet Initiative.
Here's an example of a web page takeover from a hacker who has been linked to the SEA.
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