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New York Times and Twitter hit by hacker attack on Melbourne host New York Times and Twitter hit by hacker attack on Melbourne host
(21 days later)
Australian web hosting company Melbourne IT has been targeted in a major attack by hackers that disrupted the New York Times website and Twitter.

The Syrian Electronic Army, which supports the Assad regime in Syria, has claimed responsibility for the denial of service, or DNS, attack, which took down the New York Times website for several hours last night. The SEA also claimed that it "owned" Twitter's domain. Twitter and the New York Times both use Melbourne IT as a domain name registrar.

Theo Hnarakis, the chief executive of Melbourne IT, told Guardian Australia that the perpetrators had gained access to the company's systems via a valid user name and password.

"One of our resellers in the US was targeted and we are currently investigating how this could have happened," he said. "We are working with a variety of parties to trace the relevant ISP to see who was responsible for this.

"We have rectified this as best we can. I wish I could say how this occurred but I don't want to speculate at this stage. We will update people on this. Given there is a vulnerability, we need to make sure this doesn't happen again. But there is no evidence that the systems had been hacked at this stage."

Hnarakis, who on Wednesday announced that he would step down as chief executive after a decade in the role in a move he said was unconnected to the hack attack, said the New York Times and Twitter were now both back online and operating normally. System passwords had been changed and locked.

Four other lesser known websites were also affected, Hnarakis said. Melbourne IT holds registrations for a raft of major websites.		Australian web hosting company Melbourne IT has been targeted in a major attack by hackers that disrupted the New York Times website and Twitter.

The Syrian Electronic Army, which supports the Assad regime in Syria, has claimed responsibility for the denial of service, or DNS, attack, which took down the New York Times website for several hours last night. The SEA also claimed that it "owned" Twitter's domain. Twitter and the New York Times both use Melbourne IT as a domain name registrar.

Theo Hnarakis, the chief executive of Melbourne IT, told Guardian Australia that the perpetrators had gained access to the company's systems via a valid user name and password.

"One of our resellers in the US was targeted and we are currently investigating how this could have happened," he said. "We are working with a variety of parties to trace the relevant ISP to see who was responsible for this.

"We have rectified this as best we can. I wish I could say how this occurred but I don't want to speculate at this stage. We will update people on this. Given there is a vulnerability, we need to make sure this doesn't happen again. But there is no evidence that the systems had been hacked at this stage."

Hnarakis, who on Wednesday announced that he would step down as chief executive after a decade in the role in a move he said was unconnected to the hack attack, said the New York Times and Twitter were now both back online and operating normally. System passwords had been changed and locked.

Four other lesser known websites were also affected, Hnarakis said. Melbourne IT holds registrations for a raft of major websites.
Twitter has said it has regained control of its domain, with the company stating that the viewing of photos was "sporadically impacted". The New York Times said that the incident was the result of a "malicious external attack" and advised its employees to be careful when sending emails.

"In terms of the sophistication of the attack, this is a big deal," Marc Frons, chief information officer for the New York Times Company, said in a statement. "It's sort of like breaking into the local savings and loan versus breaking into Fort Knox. A domain registrar should have extremely tight security because they are holding the security to hundreds, if not thousands, of websites."

Once someone has access to the domain registrar they can redirect people away from a website, as well as access email.

The Syrian Electronic Army allegedly hacked the Washington Post's website on 15 August. Managing editor Emilio Garcia-Ruiz said the website had fallen victim to a "sophisticated phishing attack to gain password information".		Twitter has said it has regained control of its domain, with the company stating that the viewing of photos was "sporadically impacted". The New York Times said that the incident was the result of a "malicious external attack" and advised its employees to be careful when sending emails.

"In terms of the sophistication of the attack, this is a big deal," Marc Frons, chief information officer for the New York Times Company, said in a statement. "It's sort of like breaking into the local savings and loan versus breaking into Fort Knox. A domain registrar should have extremely tight security because they are holding the security to hundreds, if not thousands, of websites."

Once someone has access to the domain registrar they can redirect people away from a website, as well as access email.

The Syrian Electronic Army allegedly hacked the Washington Post's website on 15 August. Managing editor Emilio Garcia-Ruiz said the website had fallen victim to a "sophisticated phishing attack to gain password information".
The group has also previously attacked the Guardian.The group has also previously attacked the Guardian.
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