Al Mayadeen hacked after reflecting truth of Iran riots: Director

Al Mayadeen Online Director Bahia Halawi says the social media platforms of the Lebanese outlet were hacked after its reports on the truth of Western-back riots in Iran “infuriated” some parties.

A number of social media pages of the outlet were hacked on Thursday night and published a fake news piece about an explosion at Beirut airport. The network immediately dismissed the fake story and announced that its accounts had come under a cyber-attack.

According to Halawi, the platforms were successfully restored and resumed work within a few minutes.

She said the outlet has designated a special section for covering the violent riots in Iran which are aimed at undermining the security of the Islamic Republic.

“Al Mayadeen reporting the truth regarding what is going on in Iran infuriated several parties,” she said on Thursday.

The social platforms, she said, were hacked via an account that had access to the network but the situation came under control shortly after the attack.

Describing the attack as “complicated and thoroughly thought out,” Halawi said hackers had been preparing the attack for a long time.

Attackers in a post claimed to be a Daesh cell in the Ain Al-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, but Halawi dismissed the claim, saying, "We have information proving it is much more serious than that."

"We were able to find the IP addresses of the parties that hacked Al Mayadeen's social media pages," she said.

According to the director, there have been several cyber-attack attempts against the channel’s platforms before.

SS