Call, messaging and photo sharing platform Viber has been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army, giving access to the customer support panel and the support administration system.
The hack by the group supporting the besieged Syrian president Bashar al-Assad however did not expose Viber’s databases or sensitive user data.
According to an official statement from Viber, the hacking was perpetrated through email phishing with one of their employees falling victim to the hackers.
The attack led to the defacing of theViber Support site although the company said the attack was minor.
“It is very important to emphasize that no sensitive user data was exposed and that Viber’s databases were not “hacked”. Sensitive, private user information is kept in a secure system that cannot be accessed through this type of attack and is not part of our support system,” read the statement.
Viber said it is reviewing all its policies to make sure a repeat of a similar incident is not probable.
Following the successful attack the Free Syrian Army said the company was being used by the Israeli government to spy and track users.
The mobile messaging and VoIP app denied the accusations and said although the company has a development centre in Israel, the allegations had no merit.
“Viber, like many other companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Google, and Intel maintains a development center in Israel. It seems like this caused some people to come up with some pretty bizarre conspiracy theories,” Viber said.
Following the hack, the customer support page has been shut down.
