Some users of a number of global websites were reportedly affected by a hack claiming to have come from the Syrian Electronic Army today, with pages including The Independent showing messages from the pro-Assad collective, the Independent reported on Thursday.
The hack hit websites using the popular Gigya comment platform. Hackers re-directed some users to their site or to display their messages, by exploiting the DNS entry - which translates URLs such as independent.co.uk into directions to the site - at GoDaddy, the site's domain registrar.
The Gigya platform itself was not hacked, and no user data is or was in jeopardy, said experts.
Some users attempting to access the sites saw a notification saying “You’ve been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA)”.
The message did not appear for all users and seemed to hit mostly those using Apple devices, though some users of Google Chrome on PCs reported the same problems.
The Syrian Electronic Army is a group of hackers who support the Assad regime in Syria.