On Monday, Barack Obama's official Twitter account linked to a YouTube video belonging to the account Syrian Truth.
Immigration is a bipartisan issue: http://t.co/PI3AcScpxG #ActOnReform
Barack Obama
@BarackObama
Immigration is a bipartisan issue: http://t.co/PI3AcScpxG #ActOnReform
The @BarackObama Twitter account is managed by Organizing for Action, a nonprofit that was formed by the Obama campaign.
The Twitter card displays the link as a Washington Post story, but it actually takes you to a video called "Syria facing terrorism."
The video is a compliation of violent footage taken in Syria.
View this video on YouTube
It appears as though the Syrian Electronic Army hacked into accounts associated with President Obama's URL shortener and not his actual Twitter account, so the hackers only seem able to manipulate links that the account tweets.
Mashable is reporting that a message from an email address associated with the SEA confirmed that it was planning on hacking Obama's social media accounts.
In an exclusive email to Mashable sent from an account believed to belong to the SEA on Monday, the group notified us of the hack, but would not provide details about how it accessed the accounts.
"All the the links that Barack Obama account tweeted it and post it on Facebook was redirected to a video showing the truth about Syria," an SEA spokesperson wrote.
The SEA has also tweeted screenshots, one of them inside a control panel for a user named Anatole.
We are watching you, Obama Bin Laden #SEA #SyrianElectronicArmy
SyrianElectronicArmy
@Official_SEA16
We are watching you, Obama Bin Laden #SEA #SyrianElectronicArmy
This appears to belong to Anatole Jenkins, fundraising manager for Barack Obama. The website bluestatedigital.com is also down.
The other screenshot is of a Gmail account belonging to the email address ssnurpus@barackobama.com.
We accessed many Obama campaign emails accounts to assess his terrorism capabilities. They are quite high #SEA
SyrianElectronicArmy
@Official_SEA16
We accessed many Obama campaign emails accounts to assess his terrorism capabilities. They are quite high #SEA
It appears to belong to Suzanne Snurpus, state climate organizer for Organizing for Action.
