US Department of Justice issued an arrest warrant for Ahmad Umar Agha and Firas Dardar after their sloppy hacking attacks that led authorities to learn their personal information.
The two hackers are connected to Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a group of hackers affiliated to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that emerged last 2011. They aim to support the government by hacker high-profile accounts including breaching the Twitter accounts of the Washington Post, Reuters and the Associated Press.
They attacked different computer systems and employees of the USA’s Executive Office of the President and issued many extortion attacks on different companies such as a gaming company and a media outlet. They also target individual citizens by using phishing emails to steal credit card and bank information.
“While some of the activity sought to harm the economic and national security of the United States in the name of Syria, these detailed allegations reveal that the members also used extortion to try to line their own pockets at the expense of law-abiding people all over the world,” said Assistant Attorney General, John Carlin, in a statement.
Despite their high-profile attacks, the two are somewhat careless in covering their tracks. Investigators found many clues in Gmail and Facebook where they are discussing their plan of attacks.
According to DOJ, the hackers were caught communicating in Facebook about their agenda, where information was accessible to investigators. Dardar also used his personal Gmail account to made extortion demands which led US investigators to get personal information about him.