A typical message was, "I didn't join the Navy to fight for Al Qaeda in a Syrian civil war." The photos were accompanied by a longer message: "This is a message written by your brothers in the Syrian Army, who have been fighting al-Qaeda for the last 3 years. We understand your patriotism and love for your country so please understand our love for ours... The Syrian army should be your ally not your enemy." It finishes, "Your brothers, the Syrian army soldiers. A message delivered by the SEA."
The defacement is typical of SEA cyberattacks – the group's primary concern has always been pro-Assad propaganda. At the time of writing this, the website is operating normally and is free from defacements.
This attack follows an email interview between SEA and the BBC after the UK parliament's decision not to back UK military intervention in Syria. "It's the right thing," a SEA spokesman told BBC News, adding, "Our main mission is to spread truth about Syria and what is really happening."
In the past, SEA gained most of its publicity by hacking the Twitter accounts of high-profile media accounts to spread its message. In recent months it has begun more ambitious hacks, including communications companies Viber, TrueCaller and Tango. This led to some suggestions that perhaps SEA is not merely involved in propaganda, but also seeking out Syrian dissidents.
Last week it broke into the control panel of Melbourne IT, managing to hijack the websites of the New York Times, Twitter and the Huffington Post, and briefly redirecting visitors to a SEA server. "All the media outlets that we targeted were publishing false/fabricated news about the situation in Syria," the SEA spokesman told the BBC.
The group also gave further information about itself in a separate email interview with Mashable. It is often suggested that SEA is funded and/or supported from outside of Syria. SEA denies this. "We are all based in Syria," it said. "Clearly," it said, "all these allegations that other nations are helping us is an attempt to undermine people's impression of the Syrian people's capabilities, it is an indirect form of racism."
It also said that recent claims to have discovered the identity of some SEA members, were wrong. "Neither Hatem Deeb nor Mohammed Osman are hackers, but are both friends of ours that they are trying to intimidate in order to blackmail us. What they're doing is actually illegal and irresponsible, they even posted a photograph of a random guy that none of us could identify and called him the leader of the SEA."
To the BBC, it warned that it it had "many surprises" to come.