Syrian Electronic Army Ambushes CNN Social Media

In what appears to be their latest high-profile assault on U.S. media, hackers from the Syrian Electronic Army took credit for breaching a slew of CNN social media sites.

CNN acknowledged in a message on its official Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) account that “some of our organization’s social media accounts were compromised,” The media company, which is owned by Time Warner (NYSE:TWX), said it has “secured those accounts and deleted unauthorized tweets.”

Late Monday the Syrian Electronic Army, a collection of hackers who sympathize with the Assad regime, fired off a number of tweets claiming that it “decided to retaliate” against CNN over the news agency’s “vicious lying” in reporting on the conflict in Syria.

Screenshots of CNN’s official Twitter handle from late Monday show a number of obviously hacked messages, including one that said: “Syrian Electric Army Was Here… Stop lying…All your reports are fake!”

Additionally, CNN Politics’ Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) account was hacked as were a number of the company’s blogs, including ones for The Situation Room and Crossfire.

CNN is hardly the first U.S. company to find itself in the crosshairs of the SEA. The group has previously taken credit for attacks on the websites of The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) and The Washington Post last August as well as the social media accounts of Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Skype messaging service earlier this month.

On Monday, the hackers promised to attack more U.S. media outlets.

“The #SEA will not stop to pursue these liars and will expose them and their methods for the world to see,” the group said on Twitter.

Shares of New York-based Time Warner fell 1.69% to $63.55 Friday morning, outpacing a 0.86% decline for the S&P 500.