The online community was shocked this week when the micro-blogging platform, Twitter, was hacked by a group calling themselves the Iranian Cyber Army.  Early visitors after the attack saw a graphic of the Iranian flag super imposed with Arabic writing, along with a strangely polite message in English, before Twitter suspended all services.

This kind of total shut down of one of the most popular sites in existence is more than worrying.  While the hack may seem benign enough, it certainly leaves a lingering bad taste.  If the attach was indeed carried out by a political activist group they have some serious intelligence and technical firepower in their arsenal, and in this day and age, any vulnerability on the internet could be exploited to disrupt and damage public, professional and political communications.

Social media site are tempting targets for hackers for obvious reasons, and especially for anyone with a message to get across.  Who wouldn’t like to splash their slogan to 325 million people in one go?

I, for one, am slightly unnerved.