Rival hackers hit Syrian Electronic Army website

The Syrian Electronic Army has caught out many different media organisations

The website of the Syrian Electronic Army has been attacked and defaced by a rival group of Turkish hackers.

The TurkGuvenligi hacking group claims to have defaced the site replacing its front page with a mocking message.

The main website of the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) is still offline hours after the attack took place.

The defacement is embarrassing for the SEA which has regularly caught out media organisations by hacking their websites and social media feeds.

Security analyst Graham Cluley noticed the attack had taken place and in a blogpost said the Turkish hackers appeared to have got access to the website by targeting the company that hosted the website.

"The SEA has discovered what it feels like to be a victim," wrote Mr Cluley.

TurkGuvenligi and the SEA clashed on Twitter and exchanged insults as news about the defacement spread.

The SEA claimed TurkGuvenligi carried out the website hack simply to get attention rather than in retaliation for an attack by the Syrian group on Turkish sites.

The attack turns the tables on the SEA which before now has compromised many different sites and organisations to post messages in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It is believed to have caught out the Washington Post, the BBC, AP, Skype, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times and Reuters.