Following reports that intelligence agencies also siphon information from mobile applications such as Angry Birds, the website of the popular game was defaced by angry hackers.
The Angry Birds website got barbecued, Wednesday, by hackers who inserted an image screaming with a Spying Birds title and one of the popular characters sporting a logo of the National Security Agency on its forehead.
According to the company, the attack was very similar to how The New York Times was hacked in August. That attack was attributed to the Syrian Electronic Army who also recently hacked CNN's website and its Twitter account. However, the SEA claims that the Angry Birds' defacement was done by someone who is anti-NSA.
"Rovio Entertainment Ltd, which is headquartered in Finland, does not share data, collaborate or collude with any government spy agencies such as NSA or GCHQ anywhere in the world. There has been speculation in the media that NSA targets Angry Birds to collect end user data. The speculation is based on information from documents leaked by Edward Snowden," the company explained through a press release. "Rovio does not allow any third party network to use or hand over personal end-user data from Rovio's apps."
Major publications such as The Guardian, The New York Times, and ProPublica published stories Monday based on leaked documents of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden alleging collaboration between the United States and Britain to access personal information by tapping into devices through mobile applications installed in them. The published documents did not reveal specifics about the data harvested from mobile applications.
Aside from Angry Birds, other mobile applications such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, and other services can also be sources of data for the spy agencies.
"The defacement was caught in minutes and corrected immediately. The end user data was in no risk at any point. Due to how the internet name resolution works, for most areas it was not visible at all, but some areas take time for the correct information to be updated," said marketing manager at Rovio Saara Bergstrom.
Rovio reiterated that its customers' privacy is of utmost importance.
"As the alleged surveillance might be happening through third party advertising networks, the most important conversation to be had is how to ensure user privacy is protected while preventing the negative impact on the whole advertising industry and the countless mobile apps that rely on ad networks. In order to protect our end users, we will, like all other companies using third party advertising networks, have to re-evaluate working with these networks if they are being used for spying purposes," said Rovio chief executive Mikael Hed.
