Microsoft Office blog defaced by hackers

Hackers

Microsoft has found itself under fire once more from the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), after the hacktivist group claimed responsibility for defacing its newly revamped Office blog yesterday.

The attack happened on the same day Microsoft unveiled a brand new design for the blog, which is aimed at helping Office users get the most out of the productivity software.

The hackers uploaded several posts, including one that stated: "Hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army."

The group are understood to have gained access to the backend of the blog through a phishing attack against Microsoft's employees.

In a post on the micro-blogging site Twitter, the SEA added weight to this theory by posting. "Dear @Microsoft, Changing the CMS will not help you if your employees are hacked and they don't know about that. #SEA"

The phrase "changing the CMS" refers to the backend revamp Microsoft gave the site as part of its redesign, which is thought to have resulted in the firm moving to a Wordpress-based system.

The hackers posted screenshots on Twitter, which they claim showed the site's old administration panel and the new one shortly after.

It is the third time this month Microsoft has suffered at the hands of the SEA, after its internal email system, and several of its Twitter accounts were hijacked by them.

Furthermore, its Skype blog, along with the Facebook and Twitter accounts associated with the VoIP service, were also apparently hacked by the group on 2 January.

At the time of writing, the motivation behind the attacks on Microsoft was still unknown.

Caroline Donnelly is the news and analysis editor of IT Pro and its sister site Cloud Pro, and covers general news, as well as the storage, security, public sector, cloud and Microsoft beats. Caroline has been a member of the IT Pro/Cloud Pro team since March 2012, and has previously worked as a reporter at several B2B publications, including UK channel magazine CRN, and as features writer for local weekly newspaper, The Slough and Windsor Observer. She studied Medical Biochemistry at the University of Leicester and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism at PMA Training in 2006.