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Hackers Will Leak Syrian Stock Exchange Database Unless Assad Tackles ISIS

A group claims to have provided the Syrian government with locations of Islamic State operatives.
Screengrab: Fox News

A group of hackers took down the website of Syria's only stock exchange this afternoon and are threatening to leak the exchange's database unless president Bashar al-Assad takes military action against the Islamic State.

The group, called Project Viridium, says that over the last several weeks, it has infected several Islamic State operatives' computers and have provided the Assad government with information about their whereabouts.

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Earlier today, the group tweeted that it had successfully taken down the Damascus Securities Exchange. At the time of this writing, the exchange's website is still inaccessible, due to what appears to be a fairly common DoS (Denial of Service) attack.

Syrian stock exchange pwned. Reason: failure to take action against ISIS members. P.S fix your fucking shit. pic.twitter.com/d89pwekYwx

— Project Viridium (@ProjectViridium) August 26, 2014

A member of the group confirmed to me on Twitter that the site was taken down with a DoS attack, but said that the group had also gained access to the exchange's servers and databases.

Project Viridium says it's ready to release the exchange's database, which would include financial information and user login credentials, if Assad doesn't take action against the terrorist group.

"We have many members pwned," the hacker told me. "Soon to come, we'll post that."

About a half hour after taking down the stock exchange, Project Viridium published the following statement on DOXBIN, which you can gain access to with the Tor browser (message posted as it was written):

Statement regarding DSE DDoS/Hack: First, let me introduce my(our)self. We are ProjectViridium (yes like the pokemon). We have fought silently for the last 4-6 years against blackhats and scammers. Only recently did we decide to start targeting Terrorist groups. We have been gathering inteligence on ISIS members for about 2 weeks now. So far we have 15 caged (i.e malware on pc/equiv) and about 40 prospects (not yet pwned, waiting). Our general goal is to make a dint, however big or small in the world of terror. Why did we target syria exchange?
k, first. anonymous, you didnt ddos it fuck off and go play minecraft. Second, we did this attack in retaliation for Syrian/Assad regime ignoring our reports of ISIS member locations (1 member is exactly 3.4km from a fucking police station). The evidence of ISIS members location in this specific case is gathered without use of ANY malware, hacking or anything of the such. Adding that before someone mentions how assad cant act cause
evidence is from hacking (like he'd give a fuck) Stay tuned.
-PV