NEW YORK, NY— The group reportedly hacked and took over the New York State Senate’s Official website. This hack marks a series of similar attacks throughout the week, where the Syrian Hackers leave a copy of a random message showing that they’ve breached security. This isn’t the first time that press releases have been developed, either.
According to zone-h, Swan has hacked over 14,000 wide variety of websites. 861 of them are Government and Education websites (including MIT as well as Columbia University).
How Swan is Attacking Government and Education Websites
The hacks aren’t coming through the websites, usually by getting control of a VoIP type of technology with lax security- like using an HP LaserJet 600 M602 to breach the University of Columbia’s website. Most (but not all visitors) to these sites received messages saying “You have hacked by Swan! Share the love,” reported most by mobile users. This means that swan isn’t hacking the websites themselves, but taking advantage of a program called Gigya.
It’s a customer identity management platform used by many different brands— including Twitter. The hackers changed the DNS of the website, pointing the hackers to messages, images, and other servers; reported the Independent (one of many sites that had been hacked, receiving the same types of messages).
It wouldn’t appear that these hackers had malicious intent because they aren’t requesting anything for their hacks. Plus, the New York State Senate official site already removed the content— but the proof has already been saved in zone-h cache records.
