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VOIP Provider Viber Attacked By Syrian Electronic Army

Posted by Unknown on from the bad-hackers dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The hacking group known as the Syrian Electronic Army have hacked into Viber, defacing its support website, and posting what they claim is evidence of surveillance by the free phone-messaging app. The Syrian Electronic Army posted a message claiming the 'Israeli-based Viber is spying and tracking you' alongside what appeared to be a screenshot of an internal Viber database containing users' phone numbers, device UDIDs, IP address, operating system, and Viber version information." Viber is saying the attack was minor: "...the hack only allowed access to two minor systems, a customer support panel and a support administration system. According to the company's official response, 'no sensitive user data was exposed and Viber's databases were not "hacked."' Apparently, an employee simply fell victim to a phishing attack.

33 comments

  1. probably true by Trepidity · · Score: 1

    From Wikipedia,

    Viber Media is a Cyprus-based company with development centers in Belarus and Israel. The company was founded by American-Israeli entrepreneur Talmon Marco.

    From that, you can surmise how many different governments are likely to have access to its call "metadata".

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    1. Re:probably true by mrmeval · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Considering the shit this administration has pulled against the Israeli's I think they'd hand them shit and more shit. Why should they make them look good by giving them any intel?

      --
      I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
    2. Re:probably true by Xenkar · · Score: 1, Interesting

      http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/08/1043424/-10-Things-Obama-Has-Done-To-Strengthen-Israel

      With the amount of gratitude you show the United States, I'm amazed that we spend so much money on Israel. We could be using that money to fix our infrastructure, upgrade to a nationwide fibre internet, and perhaps switch to single payer healthcare.

      We don't want to attack Iran just because Netanyahu brought out a Wiley E Coyote diagram at the UN. I'm sorry if that offends you. Israel has been crying wolf about Iran for decades.

      The problem with crying wolf is that eventually people start ignoring you. Hell, I've been the victim of it even though I never cried wolf. I was bleeding badly after getting a nasty cut in the woods and I had to haul myself to safety as a child because adults thought I was just a kid playing around by screaming "HELP!"

    3. Re:probably true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The "shit this administration has pulled against the Israeli's?"

      You mean like when they collaborated to create the Stuxnet virus together in an attempt to end Iran's uranium enrichment program (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet)? That kind of shit?

      The current administration is no different than the last one when it comes to Israel, sorry to break the bad news to you. You might see them getting handed "shit," but the IMI is being handed "weapons," weapons that your tax money helped pay for and the US is still using its political clout to target Israel's enemies. Same shit, same deck of cards, shuffled only just enough to make you think you had any say in the matter.

      I'm sure they'll be happy to thank you later?

    4. Re:probably true by erikkemperman · · Score: 1

      Replying to undo wrong mod. Should've been Informative but got Funny.

      --
      Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
  2. Don't care. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    About israel.

    In fact i'm tired of hearing about them. And giving them lots of my tax money every year. That's just stupid.

    Screenshot? With phone numbers, device UDIDs, IP address, operating system, and Viber version information? I would hope the company has that kind of information. It's their JOB after all.

    Either way. STFU syrian assholes. You're not helping. No matter what your beef with israel is.

    1. Re:Don't care. by Lennie · · Score: 0

      As a politician you can't be against Israel in the US, you'll be an outcast and out of a job as a politician forever:

      If you don't understand that, watch this docu:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N294FMDok98

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
  3. Communication... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ...should be point-to-point and use encryption. Anything else is a major design flaw.
    This whole cloud business needs these types of attacks to show what a bad idea it is.

    1. Re:Communication... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correct if security is the priority. These systems, Viber and similar, are however build with performance in mind. The user experience has to be the best possible. Whatever to say about cloud it outperforms p2p, especially mobile p2p.

  4. Muslim savages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Al Quada bitches killing kids because they don't follow their religion? Typical.
     
    Fuck Mohammad! Fuck Allah! FUCK ISLAM!!!!!!

    1. Re:Muslim savages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Modding it down does not make it any less true. Or any more likely to improve.

      The muslim religion is not compatable with the rest of the people on the planet.
      The sooner we wise up to that fact. The easier it will be to deal with.

  5. Of course it's for surveillance. by LikwidCirkel · · Score: 1

    "free phone-messaging app" is all anyone should need to know to recognize something as a surveillance tool.

    1. Re:Of course it's for surveillance. by Nerdfest · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but don't let the fact that you pay for it lull you into a false sense of security. If you don't control the encryption keys (and really, have access to the source) you should be suspicious. Don't think your text messages are intercepted?

    2. Re:Of course it's for surveillance. by longk · · Score: 1

      Every router on the internet is an interception device. Interception doesn't necessarily mean spying. But yes, I get your point. Of course everyone who legally can will harvest and exploit data. To think otherwise is naive.

  6. just how big is this "army" ? by ClassicASP · · Score: 1

    i'm just curious. are we talking about an army of just a few talented hackers here? or is there a list of members as long as that list that they defaced the homepage with?

    1. Re:just how big is this "army" ? by Spy+Handler · · Score: 2

      It's about as big as the Mongolian navy.

  7. Not really an attack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Muslim men just love kiddie porn and were looking scouring the net to see men fucking little boys in the ass just like their prophet Mohammad did.
     
    Fuck Mohammad! Fuck Allah! FUCK ISLAM!!!

  8. "Evidence of tracking?" really? by Nermal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Someone please explain how a VOIP service is supposed to work /without/ a table associating numbers with UUIDs, software versions, etc? *eyeroll*

    1. Re:"Evidence of tracking?" really? by longk · · Score: 1

      I dunno, my SIP phone works just fine without all this information.

    2. Re: "Evidence of tracking?" really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WRONG again Troll....

      They HAVE an ID, Pass and IP
      Period.

      have the common courtesy understand the technology you are attempting to comment on.

      Thanks

    3. Re: "Evidence of tracking?" really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which of those are "UUIDs, software versions"? None? I think the GP may be right, and you may be an idiot.

    4. Re:"Evidence of tracking?" really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Your SIP provider surely has a table identifying you to route calls, and your phone surely sends its software version when it connects. Certainly every SIP server software I've seen can list this too. Without some sort of provider to connect to, your SIP phone will be very quiet.

    5. Re: "Evidence of tracking?" really? by Nermal · · Score: 1

      >> "They HAVE an ID, Pass and IP"
      > Which of those are "UUIDs, software versions"?

      Regarding part of your question, the answer to "which of those is a UUID?" is.... "ID". That was a fun game! But surely if you're informed enough to be willing to just dismiss the previous commenter as an idiot, you would know that a UUID is just a randomly-generated ID number, which is much more practical than distinguishing users by username.

      You would also, of course, be able to infer that storing software version information might make more sense in the context of a software provider managing updates and support than in the context of a secret plot to reveal to the government who hasn't upgraded to the latest version yet.

    6. Re: "Evidence of tracking?" really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the answer to "which of those is a UUID?" is.... "ID".

      Are you really this stupid?

      The person who made the original use of the term ID was doing so in relation to SIP. While SIP requires user IDs, they're not specified by UUIDs.

      You're an idiot, and you should feel bad.

  9. WTF Holy Cow! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh wait the details they have are all of the most basic, and sanitized possible in order to troubleshoot a basic software complaint.

    Read the article slowly and take extra note of the article title ... Something something "Support".

    Then all of you half assed techno geek alarmists can pull your lip over your head and swallow!

  10. HAXORED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ok, let's be clear. When I phish your ass, screenshot your internal support screens, you've been HACKED. And if you don't format this disk, you will remain HACKED. Seriously, is this guy for real? ROFLMAO.

    I guess you have to steal $45M from ATMs in 20 cities to be taken seriously these days, jeeze!

  11. Ex IDF CIO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Viber is from the ex CIO (Chief Intelligence officer) of the IDF (Israeli Defence force). Dig into it and someone tried to hide the Israeli origin (see the revision history of Wikipedia), Lots of warning flags there, best to avoid that app.

    My guess is that the NSA pays for data, and there's a market there, and so all these creepy free data grabbing apps, some of which may be breaking lots of laws, collect that data and sell it to the NSA to fill the giant database and that's there business model.

    We do need a new Skype though, now that Skype has been bought by Microsoft and backdoors for the NSA, if they're currently recording all text messages and most of the voip phone calls on Skype, you can bet it will be video and facial recognition tomorrow. 4 giant data centers don't fill themselves, if he had to invent 800,000 terrorist suspects to justify one data center, we're looking at maybe 100 suspects here on Slashdot. So don't imagine you can hide in the volume of data, you..... terrywrists.

  12. Syrian Electronic Army? by Anarchduke · · Score: 2

    The name reminds me of groups like the People's Front of Judea

    --
    who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
  13. So is there a connection between Viber and Tango? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I saw this news story yesterday, but it appears to be an attack on a different company/app.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23418774

  14. US/Israeli spy network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Apparently, an employee simply fell victim to a phishing attack."

    Massive fraud in the corrupt underworld of the US/Israeli surveillance network, and another pawn had to be sacrificed in this big cheatin' chess game. News at 11. I'm so sick of this business I could puke.