Anonymous strikes again: this time it has hacked into the email accounts of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's aides, reports Haaretz. The hacker group released 78 username and password combinations for the accounts, and 56 of those accounts used the password "12345," while five others added just a "6" to that string. It looks like those less-than-secure passwords posed little defense against the intruders. According to Foriegn Policy, few of the emails contained incriminating info, though the media has latched onto a message sent between two press aides suggesting some advice on manipulating American audiences for the Syrian president's December 7th interview with Barbara Walters on ABC. While we're all used to Anonymous supporting various web causes like The Pirate Bay and Megaupload, recent moves against governments that crackdown on Occupy movements and this week's attack on Syria remind us that the unpredictable group is ready, willing, and able to make itself noticed on internationally relevant issues.
Oh noes! Syrian governments email and passwords dumped by #LulzFin and cr3w pastebin.com/uaYDfCz0 #AntiSec #OWS #Anonymous #Syria #InfoSec
— LulzFinancial™ (@LulzFinancial) February 6, 2012
We are #Anonymous -- We are #AntiSec --We are the 99% -- To the #Syria government, you probably should have expected us. #LulzFin #InfoSec
— LulzFinancial™ (@LulzFinancial) February 6, 2012