Obama Twitter Account, Campaign Group's Emails Hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army

The Syrian Electronic Army, a pro-regime collective of hackers, has done it again, only this time the target they’ve compromised is an organization with close ties to the president of the United States.

[Read here about how the attack may have gone down.]

In a statement on Twitter, the SEA said it “accessed many Obama campaign emails accounts to assess his terrorism capabilities. They are quite high.” Quartz has confirmed with the campaign staffer whose compromised email address is included in the posting that her account was hacked over the weekend, along with “lots” of other volunteers for Obama’s Organizing for Action grass roots campaign organization, which currently works to support the legislative agenda the president ran on.

“We’ve taken measures to correct it,” says Suzanne Snurpus. “And we’ve all changed our passwords and added an extra layer of login security.” That “extra layer” is Google’s two-step authentication, which helps prevent unauthorized logins by linking an email address to an existing cell phone number.

Read the full story at Quartz.

(Image via Flickr user eldh)