Outbrain takes recommendation widget service offline after hack compromises Washington Post, others

Outbrain has disabled its content recommendation service after a security breach compromised the websites of several prominent clients. The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) has taken credit for the hack, which is believed to have affected the Washington Post, Time, CNN, and the New York Times.

Outbrain issued the following email to explain the outage:

Earlier today, the Outbrain service was hacked and we took down service as soon as it was apparent. The breach now seems to be secured and the hackers blocked out. However, we are keeping the service down for a little longer until we can be sure it’s safe to turn it back on securely. Updates will be posted at techblog.outbrain.com.

The Post and other publishers utilize Outbrain provide a widget of sponsored links on their sites. The SEA appears to have gained access to Outbrain’s system and manipulated it to maliciously redirect links.

The SEA has been active in its attacks as of late. Earlier this week, it gained access to SocialFlow’s social media accounts.

More to follow

Image credit: Fuse