The US Department of Justice has announced that it is offering a $100,000 reward for information which leads to the arrest of 22-year-old Ahmad Umar Agha, who goes by the online handle of “The Pro,” and Firas Dardar, 27, also known as “The Shadow.”



Both are supposed to be members of the Syrian Electronic Army which has been active since 2011. Most of their activities centered on trying to steal usernames and passwords so that they could hack into email systems, social media accounts, and domain registrars to redirect websites.

Their many past victims included Reuters (whose readers were redirected to a webpage under the SEA’s control, after the group poisoned ads provided by third-party service Taboola), the Washington Post (on more than one occasion) and even Facebook on Mark Zuckerberg’s birthday.

They are best known for hacking the Twitter account of Associated Press where they left a tweet that said there were two explosions at the White House and Obama was injured. That temporarily sent the stock market tumbling with a loss of a staggering $136 billion off the stock market.

Source: Hot For Security