Syrian Electronic Army changes dns entries of Gigya platform

Due to changes in the dns entries of the Gigya login service at registrar GoDaddy, the Syrian Electronic Army has redirected visitors from many large websites to websites that are in the hands of the hackers. The dns entries are said to have been repaired by GoDaddy by now.

The Gigya platform is used to allow internet users to login to websites and leave comments. The Syrian Electronic Army, a group sympathetic to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, managed to modify Gigya’s DNS entries at registrar GoDaddy on Thursday. As a result, some visitors to a number of high-traffic websites were redirected to websites of the hacker organization. Internet users were also shown javascript pop-ups stating that they had been ‘cracked’.

The websites of Microsoft, Dell, Forbes, The Guardian, The Telegraph and La Repubblica, among others, have been affected by the attack on GoDaddy. GoDaddy and Gigya have since restored the DNS entries, although it may take some time before the problem is fully resolved due to the setup of the DNS system.

The Syrian Electronic Army has been active since 2011. At the beginning of this year, the hacker collective succeeded in stealing user data from Forbes and has often modified the DNS entries of companies and organizations.