Sky Removes Apps From Google Play After Hacks

Sky has taken down a number of its apps from the Google Play store, after the Syrian Electronic Army took over various online accounts.

Rather than hacking the apps themselves, as some had reported, the cybercriminal crew, which supports the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, broke into Sky’s Google Play account. They defaced the page, posting Syrian Electronic Army logos and comments on the site.

Google Play account hack

They also hacked into other Sky Twitter accounts, telling users to delete the apps if they were using them, as they had been hacked.

Sky later took control of its Twitter profiles, temporarily shutting them down, whilst removing the apps from the Google Play store as a precaution.

“All Sky Apps were unaffected and any Sky Android apps previously downloaded by customers are safe to use. There is no need to remove them from your android device,” a message on Sky’s help forum read.

“As soon as we have restored the apps on Google Play we will post up an update.

“In a related security breach, Twitter has locked access to @SkyHelpTeam, which is why we are currently unable to tweet from this account.”

The Syrian Electronic Army broke into the Sky accounts on Sunday, having claimed another major media scalp in the form of ITV’s Twitter account on Friday.

In the past month alone, the group has carried out successful spear phishing attacks on a host of news providers, including the FT and the Daily Telegraph.

Last week, Twitter introduced two-factor authentication in a bid to mitigate such threats, but security experts were not impressed by the micro-blogging site’s efforts.

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