Just days after the widely acknowledged 10th anniversary of Facebook, the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) took to Twitter to announce the hacking of the company’s website.
In a message posted on the SEA Twitter account, the group wrote that it owned Facebook.com.
Happy Birthday Mark! http://t.co/yWBwvXPGRZ owned by #SEA http://t.co/gk8nGxATLt pic.twitter.com/eAeGp1TvBF— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA16) February 5, 2014
In a follow-up Twitter message, the group also claimed that it had changed Facebook's domain nameserver information.
However, upon further examination, it turns out that the group was only able to change the email contact information on the company’s Whois domain information page.
@Abdulahhusam We changed the nameservers, but it's taking too much time...— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA16) February 5, 2014
Users attempting to use the social networking site reported no problems with the service as a result of the SEA action.
[seealso slug="syrian-electronic-army-hack-microsoft"]
When contacted by Mashable, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the website's nameserver information was never altered. However, the spokesperson did confirm that the website's domain record email contact information had been changed on Wednesday afternoon. As of this writing, the entire domain record has been updated with the correct information.
If the SEA had succeeded in changing the nameserver record for Facebook.com, users of the social networking site could have been directed to any other website the hackers designated.
This latest action comes just days after the SEA hacked Microsoft's Twitter account and blog.