New York Times Website Down; Syrian Electric Army Claims Responsibility

The New York Times website was knocked down for the second time this month. Evidence puts the pro-Assad Syrian hacktivist group SEA behind the attack on Tuesday on the reputable newspaper, Twitter and the Huffington Post.

The New York Times used its social media account on Facebook to inform its readers about the situation with their website and assure them that they were looking for a timely solution.

Image credit: the New York Times

“The disruption was the result of an external attack on our domain name registrar, and we are at work on fully restoring service. We regret if this has caused you any inconvenience,” the news outlet explains in a press statement.

The Times webpage went offline at 15:00 local time (19:00 GMT) on Tuesday and is still struggling to get back on track.

The mayhem started when SEA managed to break into the Melbourne IT, the company where the New York Times and Twitter have their domains registered.

Once in Melbourne IT`s system, hackers changed the IP addresses of the targeted websites with a website hosted by the SEA. So every time someone accessed the New York Times website, they were redirected towards another online site with news about the hacktivist group and about Syria.

During the blackout, the Times continued to post news on its Facebook account and on a mirror site, as reported by the BBC.

The Syrian group has claimed responsibility for quite a few reputable media companies in the past months, including CNN, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, the associated Press, Agency France-Press, and BBC.