What Is the Syrian Electronic Army?

As forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad clash with the rebel Free Syrian Army in the streets of Syria, Internet-savvy government supporters are fighting a parallel information war in cyberspace. Called the Syrian Electronic Army, the group has a single mission: unleash an onslaught of pro-government propaganda upon the Internet.

Strategy and Tactics

To achieve that goal, the group uses social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube to counter the claims of the rebel Free Syrian Army. It coordinates massive spam attacks against anyone it perceives to be anti-government, posting thousands of pro-government messages in news article comment threads and on public officials' Facebook pages as a sort of digital sit-in.

The SEA, however, is more than a simple ideological spam factory. It has gained notoriety for downing, defacing or hijacking websites and social media profiles of major media outlets, then using them to post pro-government content. The goal? With few foreign journalists operating inside Syria, there may be a higher than normal opportunity for propaganda to Influence the outside world's opinion of the volatile situation.

How has the SEA waged its digital war? To knock targeted websites offline, it has used Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, considered a relatively easy and mostly harmless cyberattack. However, hackers recently wrestled control over a Reuters blog, reportedly through a vulnerability in an outdated version of WordPress. That's a breach that requires a certain level of skill to achieve, but it's yet unknown if the hackers involved have ties to the SEA.

Neither Reuters nor a variety of other media outlets returned a request for comment on Syria-related hacking incidents.

Regardless, the SEA openly takes pride in its work and makes little effort to hide from public view: its website is chock full of information in Arabic and English about the group and how to join, an official Twitter account posts pro-Assad messages and spam attacks have been coordinated through the group's latest Facebook page, which has more than 10,000 "likes."

Facebook has repeatedly shut down the SEA's account following spam attacks on pages including that of President Obama, but new accounts are quickly created and made popular. Neither Facebook nor Twitter responded to requests for comment for this article.

Nothing New

While the Reuters attack brought the SEA a renewed wave of attention as speculation rages they had a hand in the incident, it's been active for longer than a year. Jared Keller, now of Bloomberg, wrote a thorough analysis of the group last year for The Atlantic.

Keller listed a wide variety of media outlets, universities and public officials that have been targeted by the SEA. He also pointed out that the group isn't officially a part of the Syrian government, but it has at least been recognized by Syrian President Basar al-Assad:

"There is the electronic army which has been a real army in virtual reality," said Assad in the summer of last year. The comparison works in multiple ways: as with the real Syrian army, there have been reports of defections among the SEA.

Syrian Electronic Army vs. Anonymous

One might say the SEA has much in common with another ideologically driven group of digital activists: Anonymous. Such a comparison wouldn't be too far off the mark if the two groups didn't dislike one another.

Anonymous, whose members often view themselves as orchestrators of social justice, have been trying to foil the SEA for more than a year in what it calls #OpSyria. Its latest anti-SEA effort involves using its wide social reach to counter what it views as pro-government propaganda.

"It is time for us to act," reads an Anonymous release. "It is foolish to think that we can do this alone. We need to get others involved. Phase One we take the facts and give them to the average people. We inform those around us. This begins the fall of dominos that ends in the fall of Assad."

The SEA's response? Bring it on.

"f you were a virtual army, you should know that we are a real army who believes in the victory of their country and that no one can stop us," said an SEA video made in response to Anonymous' #OpSyria. "If you want to remember who the Syrian Electronic Army is, you should recall how many times we have infiltrated your systems."

New Kind of Army

That the Internet recognizes no political borders lends the Syrian Electronic Army its most interesting characteristic: As with Anonymous, one must only need to believe in the cause to join its ranks.

Pro-government Internet users can, and perhaps have, signed up to spread misinformation, spammed opposition websites or hacked news media accounts in the name of the SEA from anywhere in the world.

If the SEA represents a new aspect of warfare, it means that previously localized conflicts can now be, in one fashion, fought from anywhere with an Internet connection.

SEE ALSO: Social Media Becoming Online Battlefield in Syria

Does the Syrian Electronic Army represent a new type of information warfare? Share your thoughts in the comments.