Syrian Hacker Sentenced to 42 Months for Decade of Intrusions

A US federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia sentenced Ahmad Umar Agha, a Syrian national linked to the Syrian Electronic Army, to 42 months in prison. The Justice Department says Agha evaded authorities for more than a decade, having become involved in a hacking conspiracy directed by figures close to Bashar al‑Assad, including the head of Syria’s General Intelligence Directorate.

The scheme ran from August 2011 to January 2024, and prosecutors describe Agha as a central operator who compromised around 47 targets, spanning Western news outlets, private companies, NGOs and government bodies in the US and allied countries.

Among the operations cited by prosecutors was the 2013 takeover of the Associated Press’s Twitter account, through which a false report about President Obama injured in explosions at the White House was published. The incident briefly triggered a stock market flash crash, wiping about $136 billion from the Dow Jones component shares. Another notable intrusion involved access to the hosting firm for the Marine Corps’ recruiting website, redirecting traffic to an image calling on Marines to defy orders.

At times, Agha attempted to harvest White House email credentials; in one instance he obtained them, but his broader plan to solicit further access from other staffers did not succeed. The DOJ notes the intrusions inflicted substantial costs on victims, including a content and advertising network that faced about $35,000 in daily losses for six months, and a global NGO that spent around $250,000 on new monitoring tools and training, with total losses of roughly $480,000. Dardar remains at large.