The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) claim to have hacked into a backup database belonging to popular video and text messaging app Tango and stolen personal information from millions of users. Compromised data is said to include phone numbers, contacts and e-mails totaling 1.5 terabytes.
A post on SEA's website includes screenshots to back up the claim along with a message pointing out that much of the information that was downloaded will be delivered to the Syrian government.
TangoMe Inc. recently confirmed a security breach on its Twitter feed, noting unauthorized access to some data. The team said they were working on increasing their security systems and apologized for any inconvenience the breach may have caused members. It's worth mentioning, however, that the company never confirmed (or denied) if the SEA was responsible for the attack.
Experts believe the Tango hack could have resulted from the company's use of an outdated version of WordPress, a popular content management system. E Hacking News said Tango was using version 3.2.1 while the latest release is at 3.5.2.
In related news, the hackers took offense to a caricature of the Syrian president that was posted by The Daily Dot. SEA asked via Twitter for the site to remove the image and when nothing was done about it, the group allegedly hacked into the site's admin panel and deleted the entire article according to reports. The article has since returned, however, along with the offending drawing.