Amnesty International Blog Hacked As Bogus Syria Campaign Pulled

Amnesty International has had one of its blogging sites compromised and defaced with a fake campaign on the conflict in Syria.

A Twitter user, “roving reporter” Oksana Boyko, managed to get hold of a screen shot of the fake campaign, which called on the UN to stop the US, Qatar and Turkey funding Syrian rebels. The bogus report claimed the rebels had committed “crimes against humanity”.

The hackers’ campaign claimed the rebels were using “abuse and collective punishment” against Syrians who did not “comply with their desire to overthrow the sovereign government for the installation of an Islamic caliphate.”

Amnesty on hack attacks?

A spokesperson from Amnesty International told TechWeekEurope its Livewire blog was targeted on Monday by hackers who posted fake blog posts, “including one that took a strong pro-Syrian government stance.”

“Amnesty International takes this matter seriously. As soon as we became aware of the security breach, the fake posts were removed and steps have now been taken to secure the security of this part of Amnesty.org,” the spokesperson said.

“It should be noted that the site that was hacked is a WordPress based blog, separate to the rest of Amnesty International’s digital infrastructure. This is a site used by Amnesty International staff to tell human rights stories. It does not carry sensitive data.”

The spokesperson said the team was looking into how the attack occurred and who was behind it.

August has seen hackers compromise various sites to issue ostensibly pro-Syrian government posts. Reuters had its blogging platform hacked twice this month. The first incident saw a false posting appear on its blog “purporting to carry an interview with a Syrian rebel leader was illegally posted on a Reuters’ journalist’s blog.”

Later in the month, a Reuters blog carried erroneous reports of the death of Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

This is not the first time Amnesty International has been hacked, either. In May, the Amnesty International UK website was compromised for two days, serving up the nasty Gh0st RAT tool.

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