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Hisham Aljundi
Doha
Qatar has presented new evidence and technical details"confirming direct contact" from the UAE, one of the blockading countries, leading to the hacking of the Qatar News Agency (QNA), its related websites and social media platforms.
At a press conference on Thursday, Ministry of Interior (MoI) officials said the planning for the hacking of QNA started as early as April. The officials said hackers obtained addresses, passwords and emails of state media staff, using them to carry out the attack against QNA.
"We have evidence now and what was revealed so far is enough to sue the hackers. But we need cooperation from the authorities in the blockading countries. However, there is no communication between us right now," Lt Col Ali al Mohannadi, head of the technology division at MoI, said.
He said the investigation results show that the hacking was done by two users, who started their cyberattack in April, and prepared for the next step.
"We traced one IP address originating from the UAE, who carried out the hacking and collected passwords for the QNA website and its digital platforms. He then passed on the information through Skype to another user who used an iPhone to hack QNA," Muhannadi added.
"The hackers had total control of the QNA network, including the related websites and social platforms."
"This was meant to fabricate and post the false reports, which were attributed to the Emir HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani."
Captain Othman Salem al Hamoud told Qatar Tribune that the hacking was so professional that it had to have"state resources" behind it.
Hamoud said the two users had visited QNA website 45 times just a few minutes before posting the false news and 41 times right after the attack as if they were waiting for their posted fake news to appear and take a screenshot of it.
He, however, added that these two users had not visited the website for more than a month prior to the cyber attack.
The officials said the hackers had full control of the QNA website and its network for three hours starting from 12:13 am on May 24 until IT experts from MoI managed to restore it.
œThe operation was done in three stages starting with the hack followed by posting of fake news and then a media campaign against Qatar, ? said Muhannadi. The officials said the case has been referred to prosecutors.
In a video presentation, the ministry said that investigators found out that as early as April, hackers had already œinfiltrated ? the QNA network œusing VPN software ? and œscanned the website ?.
The ministry said the hackers ?exploited' a loophole in the network's system and installed ?malicious programmes', which were later used to carry out the publishing of the false stories.
