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Washington Post mobile site hacked

The mobile site of the Washington Post was hacked on Thursday afternoon.

Users navigating to the site found a pop-up message box that said, "You've been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army." As the user clicked on "OK," the message changed to "Saudi Arabia and its allies are killing hundreds of Yemens people everyday" and "The media is always lying" before being taken to a blank page with the words "Hacked by SEA."

The hack didn't seem to extend to the Post's desktop website or its social media accounts. The same group claimed responsibility for a sophisticated hack on the Washington Post's website in 2013.

The Syrian Electronic Army, a loose hacker collective that aligns itself with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, often targets media organizations and has claimed to hack sites and social media accounts associated with IBTimes.com, CNN, The New York Times among others.

A spokesperson for the Washington Post said they are looking into the possible hack.

UPDATE (3:00pm):

Washington Post chief information officer Shailesh Prakash confirms the hack in a statement:

“The Washington Post’s mobile homepage and some section fronts on the mobile site were redirected to a site that claimed to be run by the Syrian Electronic Army. The situation has been resolved and no customer information was impacted.”

Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.