HACKED: Skype and Snapchat compromised (As a message to Ed Snowdens Statements last year, from the Syrian Electronic Army)

"Hackers" placed a list containing 4.6 million names and phone numbers of Snapchat users and compromised the social media accounts of Internet calling service Skype in two probably unrelated Cyberattacks.

Snapchat Logo

A website called SnapchatDB.info made Snapchat user information available for download late on New Years Eve. The Cybercriminals announced, that it was an attempt to expose the vulnerability of users’ data, according to reports by tech news blog TechCrunch at The Verge. By Wednesday (January 1st, 2014) evening, the site had been suspended.

Snapchat warned of this potential risk a few days prior in a blog post, saying, that a security group had alerted it about a potential vulnerability "by which one could compile a database of Snapchat usernames and phone numbers." So you have to ask yourself, why they did not take preventions by then ??

Account suspended

Snapchat well known messaging app, that lets users send each other photos that quickly disappear. In its blog post of December 27th, Snapchat described how its "Find Friends" feature allows users to upload their contact lists to Snapchat as a way of linking up friends. The company said it had implemented safeguards making an exploit "more difficult to do." But that didnt help obviously! Up until now, the Snapchat hackers have remained anonymous.

Meanwhile though, the Syrian Electronic Army claimed credit for the attack on the official blog and social network accounts for Microsoft's Web phone service Skype.

A post that was published on Wednesday on the official Skype blog featured the headline:  

"Hacked by Syrian Electronic Army.. Stop Spying!"

On its Twitter account, the group also posted the contact information of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Corp's retiring chief executive, along with the message:
  
"You can thank Microsoft for monitoring your accounts/emails using this details. #SEA"

That message was an clear message, to the Whistleblowing statements, made by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last year, that Skype, which is owned by Microsoft, was (or still is ??) part of the NSA's program to monitor communications through some of the biggest U.S. Internet companies. Another message, posted on Skype's official Twitter feed on Wednesday, most likely by the hacking group, said:

"Don't use Microsoft emails (hotmail, outlook), They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments. More details soon. #SEA"

Similar messages were posted on Skype's official Facebook pages and on a blog on its website before being taken down. The SEA later tweeted out copies of the message “for those who missed it.”

Representatives for Microsoft could not be reached for comment. Maybe Ballmer will come out speaking about it, who knows ? Last month Microsoft joined seven other top technology companies in pressing President Barack Obama to rein in the U.S. government's electronic spying in a meeting at the White House. Media companies, including the New York Times and the BBC, have repeatedly been targeted by the Syrian Electronic Army and other hacker activist groups that deface websites and take over Twitter accounts. I guess the international war for your Mindhas already started,
Alex Jones would say...