(Qihoo 360) In April 2011, only days after anti-regime protests escalated in Syria, Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) emerged on Facebook to support the government’s Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In May 5, 2011 the Syrian Computer Society registered SEA’s website (syrian-es.com). Because Syria's domain registration authority registered the hacker site, some security experts have written that the group was supervised by the Syrian state. SEA claimed on its webpage to be no official entity, but 'a group of enthusiastic Syrian youths who could not stay passive towards the massive distortion of facts about the recent uprising in Syria'. As soon as May 27, 2011 SEA had removed text that denied it was an official entity. On the new page, the description of 'not an official entity' was removed, only says that it was established by a group of young Syrian enthusiasts to combat the use of the Internet, especially people that use of Facebook in Syria to 'spread hatred' and 'destroy peace'. The Syrian Electronic Army uses spam, website defacement, malware, phishing and denial of service attacks against political opposition groups, Western news agencies, human rights groups and seemingly neutral websites for Syrian conflicts. It also attacked government websites in the Middle East and Europe as well as US defense contractors. The Syrian Electronic Army is the first Arab organization to set up a public Internet army on its national network to openly launch cyber-attacks on its enemies. Syrian Electronic Army has 2 subgroups: 1. Subgroup: Goldmouse, APT-C-27 2. Subgroup: Pat Bear, APT-C-37
A Syrian Electronic Army hacker, Ahmad Umar Agha (Th3Pr0), was sentenced to 42 months in prison for his role in a conspiracy to attack nearly 50 Western targets in support of the Syrian government.
A Syrian hacker, Ahmad Umar Agha, known as 'Th3Pr0,' was sentenced to 42 months in prison for his role in a hacking conspiracy orchestrated by members of Bashar al-Assad's inner circle.
