Cyber Incident Victim: Alikhbaria
Date:
Aug 2014
Location:
Saudi Arabia
Summary
The Saudi state TV website Alikhbaria was compromised by hackers identifying as "SYRIAN CYBER," who defaced the platform with anti-government messages and imagery, including a modified photo of King Abdullah crossed out in red. The attackers claimed the breach was an act of solidarity with political prisoners held within the country, leveraging the incident to broadcast their dissent. The defacement disrupted normal operations and served as a public demonstration of opposition to Saudi authorities.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 0 motives | 2 techniques |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 2 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On August 15, 2014, the website of Saudi Arabia’s state television broadcaster was compromised by hackers identifying themselves as "Al-Rwad Al-Mujahedoon." The attackers defaced the homepage, replacing legitimate content with anti-government imagery and messages critical of Saudi leadership. The defacement included political slogans condemning the monarchy and featured symbolic imagery such as crossed-out flags. The incident rendered the website temporarily inaccessible to regular users, disrupting its primary function as a news dissemination platform. While the duration of the outage was not explicitly detailed, reports confirmed the website was restored to normal operations shortly after the breach was detected. No evidence suggested data exfiltration or secondary malware deployment beyond the defacement itself. The attack primarily impacted the broadcaster’s public-facing web infrastructure, though internal systems and broadcast operations remained unaffected.
Saudi authorities and the broadcaster’s technical team responded by taking the website offline to remove malicious content and restore legitimate services. Security patches were applied to address vulnerabilities exploited in the attack, though specific technical details regarding the initial attack vector were not disclosed publicly. The incident drew attention to the persistent targeting of Gulf state media entities by hacktivist groups, though no definitive attribution to state-sponsored actors was established. The broadcaster faced reputational harm due to the public nature of the defacement, which undermined perceptions of its operational security. No further retaliatory actions or follow-up attacks were documented in connection with this incident following the restoration of services.