Syrian Activists Claim Cyber Attack on US Army Website

It is the age of cyber warfare, without any doubts. After the Chinese developed a cyber weapon which has surprised the security of some companies in the United States, called `the Chinese Great Cannon`, a recent attack targeted against the Office of Personnel Management, a governmental agency who keeps personal records of millions of US citizens threatens to represent the start point of a Chinese strategy of stealing information in order to boost its intel capacities and its cyber warfare. Now, another key factor in the security of the United States has been the target of a cyber attack. This time, it is about the official website of the United States Army, which has been taken down on Monday morning. And, as the authorities are still trying to figure out who exactly was responsible for the attack, some Syrian activists claim cyber attack over the official website of the US Army.

Following the cyber attack against the US Army website, a twitter account has shared information according to which the aggressors behind the drop of the official website would be a group of Syrian activists, who call themselves the Syrian Electronic Army.

The Syrian Electronic Army has already earned a reputation of being supportive and to the Syrian regime and having activities which aim at backing the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who is the main protagonist of an international scandal over his legitimacy to power in the Middle Eastern country, that now has a civil war going on for more than 4 years.

The experts responsible for the security of the US Army website have tried numerous times to get the website back online, still their attempts failed and concluded with a “network error” message. Even if the US Army website was down on Monday afternoon, the other websites representing different arms of the Pentagon, like, for example, the Navy official website, were functioning in a proper way.

Officials talking on behalf of the US Army have announced that they have taken down the website, as its homepage was severely affected by the cyber attack.

“The Army took appropriate preventative measure to ensure there was no breach of Army data,”

Army Brig. Gen. Malcolm Frost has commented on the matter.

This cyber attack is another in a series of attacks targeting key factors of the United States security and data storage. Officials have warned that it is a top priority to improve the defense mechanisms of the US cyber warfare.

Image Source: The Register

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Tara Hamilton

Tara has graduated from the University of Oregon, with bachelors degree in Spanish Literature in 2010. She lived in Miami for one year and travelled extensively before settling down in El Paso.