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Washington Post Hacked, a Day After New York Times

barlevg writes "A day after the New York Times was brought down by a cyber attack, the Washington Post reported being hacked, with various news stories being redirected to the website of the Syrian Electronic Army. It's been speculated that this is the work of the same hacking syndicate that compromised both news organizations last year."

63 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. More information by barlevg · · Score: 4, Informative

    Submitter here.

    The NYT themselves claims they weren't hacked. This probably would have been a better choice for the first link than the humor column I originally chose. This non-attack-related downtime cause is elaborated on further in this article posted to zdnet (thx trb).

    On the other hand, Fox Business is also citing an unnamed source in saying it was a cyber attack. On the other hand, an unnamed source in a burlap sack is worth the sack.

    1. Re:More information by VortexCortex · · Score: 2, Funny

      On the other hand, [...] On the other hand.

      Y-you have three hands?! You're a Martian aren't you? Oh! Was that your mom in Total Recall?

    2. Re:More information by dmbasso · · Score: 1

      No, he's a juggler. Or a magician.

      --
      `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
    3. Re:More information by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Informative

      Y-you have three hands?! You're a Martian aren't you?

      Clearly he's a Motie.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    4. Re:More information by barlevg · · Score: 1

      As in, back to the first hand. Is there a less awkward / more correct way of wording that?

    5. Re:More information by OglinTatas · · Score: 4, Informative

      you beat me to it.
      The proper expression is
      On the one hand [one expression]
      on the other hand [other expression]
      on the gripping hand [gripping expression]

      It was this idiom in general usage that lead human authorities to believe that quarantine had failed.

      Niven: The Mote in God's Eye
      and The Gripping Hand

    6. Re:More information by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      As in, back to the first hand. Is there a less awkward / more correct way of wording that?

      On the first hand....

    7. Re:More information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As in, back to the first hand. Is there a less awkward / more correct way of wording that?

      I'd start with not using a hand metaphor for comparisons between more than two things if you happen to be part of a species not commonly known for having more than two hands.

    8. Re:More information by Noughmad · · Score: 2

      There are sequels to the Mote? Must... read...

      --
      PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
    9. Re:More information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Be fair: Niven & Pournelle.

      Yes, they're probably Niven's aliens, but the stories are set in Pournelle's CoDominium universe.

    10. Re:More information by OglinTatas · · Score: 1

      thanks. it was an oversight. Many of Niven's best books were actually collaborations, and Pournelle's collaborations were among the best of those.

    11. Re:More information by danlip · · Score: 1

      So NYT is claiming they were doing scheduled maintenance during the busiest time of the day. Really? Who the f*ck is running their IT department?

    12. Re:More information by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Y-you have three hands?! You're a Martian aren't you? Oh! Was that your mom in Total Recall?

      No, he's a Motie.

    13. Re:More information by rwise2112 · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, [...] On the other hand.

      Y-you have three hands?! You're a Martian aren't you? Oh! Was that your mom in Total Recall?

      He's just zis guy, you know! He's Zaphod Beeblebrox

      --

      "For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
    14. Re:More information by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 1

      There are sequels to the Mote? Must... read...

      Depending where in the world you buy it, the name of the sequel is different. In most of the world, it's The Moat Around Murcheson's Eye, but in the US it's The Gripping Hand.

      --
      Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    15. Re:More information by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Also note: There were a few chapters of 'A Mote in Gods Eye' (the initial space battle) that were removed from the book (for length). You can find that in one of the 'There Will be War' series of books. The # escapes me.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    16. Re:More information by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Y-you have three hands?! You're a Martian aren't you? Oh! Was that your mom in Total Recall?

      He could also be Zaphod Beeblebrox. However, because three is apparently only the lower bound on his number of hands, he could easily be a Jatravartid of Viltvodle VI.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    17. Re:More information by lightknight · · Score: 1

      What IT department? I thought everything was Cloud-based now, and that the Cloud meant that businesses didn't need IT anymore...

      What, you mean that we might still need an IT department? That we've been lied to? Well, we better run down to the basement, and put a stop to some of the more vocal employees mooning the previously ex-IT employees while they were cleaning out their desks...

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    18. Re:More information by jmccue · · Score: 1

      Dies that mean the Syrian Electronic Army is at the Crazy Eddie Point ?

    19. Re:More information by gVibe · · Score: 1

      Remember kids...anything coming from a Fox affiliated network has been tainted. Usually an unnamed source for Fox is that voice in the head of the reporter or whatever they call themselves.

      --
      Keywords for the NSA overthrow oppressive regime true believers marathon Manhatten the financial district blueprints I
  2. Being talked about by foxbusiness ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... is a cyber attack in itself ;-P

  3. WaPo vs. NYT by OakDragon · · Score: 4, Funny

    New York Times Web site goes down, panicked mobs stream into street demanding to know the trends

    Who knows if one, or more, of these newspaper sites are hacked? I cannot tell anymore...

    1. Re:WaPo vs. NYT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well, the entire U.S. of A. was hacked many years ago, and they're all still trying to find out what happened. I know, but I'm not sayin who, exactly - I will give a hint. It starts with a "G" and rhymes with "shmoverment".

  4. "Free Syrian Army" by globaljustin · · Score: 1, Troll

    Free Syrian Army = Illuminati/Aristocracy contractors

    Probably eastern european, just by odds...but I wouldn't be surprised if it was an American company...

    Hell it could be the same company that gets all the AC bots here on /.

    Democracy in Syria would significantly harm some old and relied-upon revenue streams for rich white people (oil from Iran to England).

    Our governments have been installing figurehead assholes in that region for centuries and Assad is no different.

    These attacks are to provoke conflict in the region to overwhelm the 'Arab Spring'-type democracy movement that was happening in Syria.

    The global elites don't want Syria to become like Lybia....doing these 'hacking' attacks is an easy way for them to prop-up the 'bad guys' in Syria without doing anything to provoke US/UN intervention.

    By doing this stuff they keep the status quo...which is a victory for them, given that Syrians were about to take back their democracy.

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
    1. Re:"Free Syrian Army" by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Not really, we just want Sunnis fighting Shea. Stalemate is the ideal outcome.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:"Free Syrian Army" by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Who are the 'good guys' in Syria? The ones selling bullets to both sides. Duh.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  5. NYT not hacked. by Longstaff · · Score: 5, Informative

    Former NYT Digital, Core Infrastructure Engineer here. The outage yesterday was a problem with their load balancers caused by internal action. Stop reading the nonsense posted by Fox Business News.

    1. Re:NYT not hacked. by barlevg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, sorry about that. I was basing the story off the speculation that was circulating yesterday at the time of the outage (and it wasn't just Fox Business News). It was only after I hit "submit" that I found the NYTimes blog post about it being not an attack.

    2. Re:NYT not hacked. by lexman098 · · Score: 1

      I was basing the story off the speculation

      Well there's your problem.

    3. Re:NYT not hacked. by barlevg · · Score: 1

      No argument from me.

    4. Re:NYT not hacked. by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 3, Funny

      ...a problem with their load balancers caused by internal actions.

      Did you try modulating the shield harmonics?

    5. Re:NYT not hacked. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      Ahhhh, PEBCMSATVM issue.

      Problem Exists Between Control Monitor Station And Twinkie Vending Machine, got it.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    6. Re:NYT not hacked. by Longstaff · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Fox Business were the first to "break" the story with a "source close to the matter". Everybody went off their lead. Every single technical statement in the article is incorrect and/or laughable. http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2013/08/14/new-york-times-site-experiences-major-outage/

    7. Re:NYT not hacked. by oodaloop · · Score: 1

      A what vending machine?

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    8. Re:NYT not hacked. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

      They must have updated it because there's nothing really bad at that link. They even mention an update.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    9. Re:NYT not hacked. by J053 · · Score: 1, Informative

      Yes - ignore FOX. I have the real scoop from Rush:

      RUSH: Folks, you can try to get to the New York Times story on the Clinton Global Initiative on the Web. I don't think you can. It's been taken down. Well, I don't know if it's been taken down or they just ended the access to it. But don't worry, I have enough of it for certain pull quotes. Oh, the whole website's inaccessible, so maybe the Times got hacked. Okay, Times got hacked. I thought just that one story pulled down. All right. It's obviously the Clinton story, the expose of the Clinton Global Initiative that's resulted in the Times website being hacked. The story is in the UK Telegraph, by Tim Stanley. "The New York Times Takes Down the Clinton Foundation. This Could Be Devastating for Bill and Hillary," is the headline. The lead is, "Is the New York Times being guest edited by Rush Limbaugh?"

  6. extra, extra! news orgs don't learn! extra! by swschrad · · Score: 2

    news of the day: they restored backups and didn't close the holes. special edition, 50 cents, read all about it.

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
  7. maintenance updates during the day ? by KernelMuncher · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Seriously, what competent IT shop pushes out maintenance updates during peak viewing times ? Our company schedules that work for Friday nights, just in case something unexpected happens. At the very least they should have saved the update until the late evening shift.

    The NY Times doesn't sound like they are telling the entire truth.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/15/business/media/new-york-times-web-site-returns-after-hours-offline.html?_r=0

    1. Re:maintenance updates during the day ? by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Who says it was scheduled work? Sometimes things happen... certs expire, equipment fails... so you have to do work in the middle of the day. I had to log in remotely via a laptop and 4G hotspot once while I was riding in a canoe on the 4th of July to bring some stuff back up. Bad luck doesn't turn off during business hours and holidays.

    2. Re:maintenance updates during the day ? by KernelMuncher · · Score: 1

      from the article in my post:

      'The outage occurred within seconds of a scheduled maintenance update being pushed out'

    3. Re:maintenance updates during the day ? by Mouldy · · Score: 1

      Thats not a universal philosophy. If something breaks late Friday night - who's going to be around to fix it? We only push stuff live after vigorous QA & review and we're as sure as we can be that it won't break anything. If it does break something, it's going to be something pretty obscure and we sure as hell want as many engineers around as possible to be available to help fix it or to make the call to rollback if a fix isn't forthcoming. The odds of the small team online late on friday knowing enough about the system to successfully diagnose and fix something obscure quickly are slim. That's exactly why we usually do live pushes during business hours - even if traffic would be quieter at 3am Sunday morning. Out of hours support should be for emergencies only - not for run of the mill live pushes.

    4. Re:maintenance updates during the day ? by wift · · Score: 1

      Laptop in a canoe sounds dangerous and kinda wonderful in a contrasting sort of way.

      --
      ....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
    5. Re:maintenance updates during the day ? by Longstaff · · Score: 4, Informative

      (former NYT Engineer) Some potentially disruptive maintenance that can be localized to a single team (say, storage maintenance) would be pushed to an overnight change window. However, emergency reachability for certain teams at NYT can problematic, so some (expected) low-impact work requiring multiple teams is done during the day. They have multiple data centers and everything is fully redundant, so updates can happen to service-drained components, be tested and then flipped once verified. Apparently that could not or did not happen here.

      FTR, the entire Digital Core Infrastructure team (responsible for Storage, Virtual Infrastructure, OS Mgmt, App Support and some networking) resigned approximately 3 months ago.

    6. Re:maintenance updates during the day ? by Mouldy · · Score: 1

      That's exactly my point. Pushing live during business hours instead of late Friday night means more people are to hand to fix any issues

    7. Re:maintenance updates during the day ? by KernelMuncher · · Score: 1

      We test in QA during the week and then release on Fridays. The full team has to be on the status call Friday night and/or Saturday morning, whenever the testing on production has been completed. If it's broken or it needs a roll-back, we all start working on it.

      My company having good remote work capabilities is a great plus but it still means don't schedule anything socially that weekend which can't be postponed.

    8. Re:maintenance updates during the day ? by KernelMuncher · · Score: 1

      Did the team go en masse to some new job like a hedge fund ? Or was this simply an expression of complete frustration ?

    9. Re:maintenance updates during the day ? by Longstaff · · Score: 3, Informative

      We left for separate opportunities; all within 6 weeks of each other. 100% related to management interference / incompetence.

    10. Re:maintenance updates during the day ? by jon3k · · Score: 1

      Oh boy. Well, when you have a couple hundred (or thousand) hosts, you can't really fit it into any particular window. These websites are also read 24 hours a day by people all over our planet, so there isn't really a "good time".

  8. Re:GitHub by barlevg · · Score: 1

    It's working fine for me (oddly, downforeveryoneorjustme agrees with you...)

  9. Outbrain Hacked -- Leads to defacement on WP,CNN by ItsPaPPy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The SEA hacked Outbrain, which is a content provider. CNN, WP, NY Times, all use this companies software to recommend stories to readers.

    http://thehackernews.com/2013/08/Outbrain-hacked-Syrian-Electronic-Army.html

    http://techblog.outbrain.com/2013/08/update-outbrain-security-breach/

  10. Slashdot reported it so it must be true by atom1c · · Score: 1

    Obviously there is continued FUD propagated on Slashdot in order for this story to be posted with one slant versus the other.

    If Slashdot's moderator is right (and contrary to the tipster) then Slashdot actually has knowledge and somehow participated in the hacking attempts in order to even paint the news event in a particular light. If Slashdot is NOT involved (but still moderates contrary to the tipster) then Slashdot's editors are promulgating fear and doubt into the minds of its readers.

    Either way, this story should be revised as to reflect the ACTUAL events which transpired (i.e. NYT experiences downtime the same day as MSFT services... and, the next day, some other company, WashPo, experiences their own downtime.. although the WashPo's downtime may have been due to hackers... in a manner unrelated to how NYT and MSFT experienced downtime, but in a manner in line with how GitHub is experiencing downtime).

  11. I forget by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Is the Syrian Electronic Army the 'good' guys or the 'bad' guys? Are they getting money, or are they getting droned? Or maybe both?

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:I forget by barlevg · · Score: 1

      They're pro-Assad, so it depends on whether you consider Assad to have committed unforgivable atrocities or whether you consider him the legitimate president of Syria.

    2. Re:I forget by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure I understand. Am I supposed to take sides between two evil bastards, or what? Sounds like a coin toss to me. I think I'll ask my bookie before I place any bets...

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    3. Re:I forget by barlevg · · Score: 1
      It's a similar problem to what happened in Egypt during the first revolution. On the one hand, you have a dictatorial despot (Mubarak, Assad). On the other, you have pro-democracy revolutionaries who may not be friendly to Western interests (Egypt democratically elected Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood). So when deciding who to "root for" you have to ask yourself: do you believe in democracy above all else, or are you more interested in seeing a pro-West government in power? It's a tricky question, and it's why the US has (weakly) condemned Morsi's overthrow and the violence against his supporters while stopping short of calling the action a coup d'etat. Still, it's better than the old US policy of

      They've got to be protected
      All their rights respected
      Until someone we like can be elected.

  12. Re: Same people who made Stuxnet? by HiThere · · Score: 1

    I thought it was supposed to be a collaboration between the US and Israel. Is it now believed to be just the US?

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  13. Re:GitHub by HiThere · · Score: 1

    O. Given the nature of git I had assumed the parent was a joke. (i.e., since you have a complete tree, the repository being down shouldn't keep you from working.)

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  14. Sobasically what happened is by mandark1967 · · Score: 1

    A hacker hacked a rag and hacks reported the hacker hacking the rag and hackers hacked another rag and more hacks wrote about hackers hacking the other rag.

    --
    Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
  15. how is this obvious? by globaljustin · · Score: 1

    The US government wants Asad out even if it means putting Al-Qaeda "in".

    so....let me get this straight...you claim that...

    The US is trying to oust Assad.

    Ok I can agree with that...

    The US doesn't care or is actively encouraging 'Al-Queda' to become the new 'leader'?

    It really makes no sense. "The US" is Obama's foreign policy...what our government does. You cannot provide one shred of evidence, logically or by links to quotations, that "the US wants Al Qaeda in"

    Take any policy of the Obama State dept towards the Arab spring. In all cases 'the US' supported the side demanding democracy (to the point it could publicly, without discrediting the rebels as having foreign funding)...

    You need to read up on the Arab Spring. While your at it, refresh yourself on Iranian history from pre-WWI to present. Note when Iran released the US hostages in 1980.

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
  16. wtf "we" by globaljustin · · Score: 1

    we just want Sunnis fighting Shea

    heh...that reminds me of the money drop scene in The Big Lebowski...

    seriously, what the fsk do you mean "we"..."we" as in the United States?

    Americans want the world to be free.

    Now, American **companies**

    That's different...and in our global economy, national distinctions and becoming less salient.

    Unscruplous American companies want shia and sunni to fight indefinitely...'divide and conquer' is a strategy in colonialism and marketing.

    American **people** are different from companies that are based in the country.

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
  17. pro-democracy = 'the good guys' by globaljustin · · Score: 1

    the good guys in Syria are, obviously, the groups trying to enact democratic reforms in the Syrian government

    by your logic, all someone has to do to discredit any democracy revolution is get one Agent Provaceteur to pose as an 'Al-Qaeda operative' and pretend to be on teh side of the rebels, then blog about it and have some of your tech's put his stuff on a known 'Al-Qaeda' website

    just because some random group says they oppose Assad and are 'Al-Qaeda' doesn't prove me wrong or you right one bit.

    it's obvious that the many pro-DEMOCRACY rebels in Syria are the 'good guys'

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
  18. Heh by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    Seriously, what competent IT shop pushes out maintenance updates during peak viewing times ? Our company schedules that work for Friday nights, just in case something unexpected happens.

    Just like FedGov with bad news.

  19. i'm an idiot by globaljustin · · Score: 1

    Original post should read: "Syrian Electronic Army"

    also: Syrian Electronic Army = Illuminati/Aristocracy contractors...

    i deserved my downmods b/c my post was confusing as hell...no wonder the responses made no sense

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett