http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/world/middleeast/hackers-use-old-web-lure-to-aid-assad.html
By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
FEB. 1, 2015
WASHINGTON -- To the young Syrian rebel fighter, the Skype message in
early December 2013 appeared to come from a woman in Lebanon, named Iman
Almasri, interested in his cause. Her picture, in a small icon alongside
her name, showed a fair-skinned 20-something in a black head covering,
wearing sunglasses.
They chatted online for nearly two hours, seemingly united in their
opposition to the rule of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian leader still in
power after a civil war that has taken more than 200,000 lives. Eventually
saying she worked “in a programing company in Beirut,” the woman asked the
fighter whether he was talking from his computer or his smartphone. He
sent her a photo of himself and asked for another of her in return. She
sent one immediately, apologizing that it was a few years old.
“Angel like,” he responded. “You drive me crazy.”
What the fighter did not know was that buried in the code of the second
photo was a particularly potent piece of malware that copied files from
his computer, including tactical battle plans and troves of information
about him, his friends and fellow fighters. The woman was not a friendly
chat partner, but a pro-Assad hacker — the photos all appear to have been
plucked from the web.
[...]
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