Syrian Army Hacker Update

In a Justice Department press release today was the announcement that Peter Romar, 37, a Syrian national affiliated with the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), pleaded guilty to felony charges of conspiring to receive extortion proceeds and conspiring to unlawfully access computers.  Romar was previously extradited from Germany on request of the U.S.  This whole story would make a good movie.

"According to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, beginning in approximately 2011, co-defendant Firas Dardar, known online as “The Shadow,” and other members of the SEA engaged in a multi-year criminal conspiracy to conduct computer intrusions against perceived detractors of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including media entities, the U.S. government and foreign governments.  Dardar remains at large.

Beginning in approximately 2013, Romar and Dardar engaged in an extortion scheme that involved hacking online businesses in the U.S. and elsewhere for personal profit. Court documents further allege that the conspiracy gained unauthorized access to the victims’ computers and then threatened to damage computers, delete data, or sell stolen data unless the victims provided extortion payments to Dardar and/or Romar.  If a victim could not make extortion payments to the conspiracy’s Syrian bank accounts due to sanctions targeting Syria, Romar acted as an intermediary in Germany to evade those sanctions."

In case this looks like just one of many extortion schemes done for profit, it isn't.  This is a new slant on hacking.  They are hacking the political opponents of Bashar al-Assad of Syria and disrupting their lives.  They are hacking a person for what they believe and speak out about.  The Chinese and Russians do the same.  It is the suppression of ideas through intimidation by various means.  Can they make a person change his mind about how he feels?  No, but they can make it inconvenient to say it out loud.