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"Several websites, including NYTimes.com and Huffington Post U.K., fell victim to cyber-attacks on Tuesday, apparently orchestrated by the &amp;quot;Syrian Electronic Group,&amp;quot; a pro\u2013Syrian government online organization. Experiencing its second outage this month, The New York Times&amp;#039;s site went down as early as 3 P.M. EST, according to tweets. Users also shared screenshots of the affected site, which appeared with the government group&amp;#039;s logo in the background and the words &amp;quot;hacked by the SEA&amp;quot; on top of the screen.  The news organization addressed the outage in a Facebook message saying, &amp;quot;Many users are having difficulty accessing The New York Times online. We are working to fix the problem. Our initial assessment is the outage is most likely the result of a malicious external attack.&amp;quot; The hackers also boasted a Twitter takeover tweeting, &amp;quot;Hi @Twitter, look at your domain, its owned by #SEA.&amp;quot; The social media outlet later resolved the issue and addressed the incident, ensuring visitors that &amp;quot;user information was not affected.&amp;quot; When back online, the NYT reported that the SEA originated in 2011 with the intention to &amp;quot;offer a pro-government counternarrative to media coverage of Syria.&amp;quot; A wide variety of media outlets and Facebook pages fell victim to their first attacks. The SEA&amp;#039;s hackings have been more frequent, though, in light of several nations considering military action after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reportedly used chemical gas to stop an uprising against him. Just a couple of weeks ago, the SEA attacked Outbrain, which affected CNN, the Washington Post and other media organizations that use the service to recommend related links to users. In response to the high-profile hacking, the SEA&amp;#039;s site has since been taken offline. What do you think of these cyber-attacks? Share your thoughts in the comments below. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/news/a47687/syrian-electronic-army-suspected-of-hacking-new-york-times/>