Cybersecurity

Why Syrian Hackers Targeted a Skype Rival

Viber's Founder and CEO Marco Talmon speaks during a news conference at the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Photographer: Albert Gea/Corbis
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The Syrian Electronic Army, the hacker group responsible for defacing several online news sites , has struck again. Visitors to a section of Viber Media's website, which provides a Skype-like Internet calling app used by 200 million people, found a scary-looking message posted there this week.

"The Israeli-based 'Viber' is spying and tracking you," the Syrian group wrote on the site. "We weren't able to hack all Viber systems, but most of it is designed for spying and tracking."