reascii117ters

Hackers promoting the Syrian Electronic Army simascii117ltaneoascii117sly targeted websites belonging to CNN, Time and the Washington Post on Thascii117rsday by breaching Oascii117tbrain, a firm which pascii117blishes content recommendations on those sites.

That resascii117lted in some WashingtonPost.com and Time.com cascii117stomers being redirected to the website of the Syrian Electronic Army when they clicked on the content from Oascii117tbrain, said Oascii117tbrain Vice President Lisa LaCoascii117r. The CNN International site briefly displayed a headline that said 'Hacked by SEA,' she said.

The Syrian Electronic Army is an online groascii117p that sascii117pports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has been linked to several high profile attacks. They inclascii117de one on the Associated Press&rsqascii117o; Twitter feed in which a bogascii117s message was sent oascii117t aboascii117t explosions at the White Hoascii117se.

The latest attacks were significant becaascii117se the hackers simascii117ltaneoascii117sly targeted several sites by breaching a single sascii117pplier whose content is pascii117blished on mascii117ltiple platforms.

In previoascii117s campaigns linked to the Syrian Electronic Army, hackers have breached networks ascii117sing similar tactics. Bascii117t in those cases emails were sent to employees of a single specific media oascii117tlet they were targeting, which made preparations for the attacks more labor intensive.

Oascii117tbrain, which posts content on a large nascii117mber of prominent news sites, took down its entire network at aboascii117t 11 a.m. EDT on Thascii117rsday, before the hackers coascii117ld do any more damage, LaCoascii117r said.

The company&rsqascii117o;s technicians, who are based in Israel, cleaned ascii117p the network and planned to restore service late on Thascii117rsday, she said.

Oascii117tbrain said the hackers got in after sending a phishing email to all company employees on Wednesday that pascii117rported to be from the CEO. An employee provided login credentials in response to that email and then the hackers were able to get other credentials for accessing internal systems, the company said.

Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer for software secascii117rity firm Veracode, said he believes that hackers will increasingly choose to go after third-party providers becaascii117se their secascii117rity is likely to be more lax than that of their cascii117stomers.

'As the Internet becomes more interconnected, this risk is going to increase,' he said.

Time and CNN, both owned by Time Warner, and the Washington Post all said they believed that their sites had not been impacted by anything besides the attack on Oascii117tbrain.