Syrian Electronic Army hacks Skype Skype, the internet calls service owned by Microsoft, was hacked by cyber criminals claiming to be supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on New Year's day, with anti-surveillance messages posted on its social media sites and blog. The attack appears to be the first time a company that is alleged to have been involved in the US National Security Agency's surveillance programme has been targeted by the hackers. IN Technology The cyber criminals wrote "hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army . . . Stop Spying!" on a Skype blog page and used Skype's Twitter account to tell the Federal Bureau of Investigation to "stop spying on people." On the company's Facebook page, the hackers told people not to use Microsoft's email services such as Outlook and Hotmail, claiming "they are monitoring your accounts and selling it to governments." The Syrian Electronic Army, a group of hackers that supports the Syrian president in the country's civil war, repeated the same messages from its own Twitter account. We recently became aware of a targeted cyber attack that led to access to Skype's social media properties, but these credentials were quickly reset. No user information was compromised," a Skype spokesperson said. Skype was among the companies named in documents leaked last year by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor, which appeared to show the US government was able to access private data about conversations as part of a mass surveillance programme. Other companies named included telecoms operators including Verizon and AT&T and large internet groups such as Google and Facebook. The group of hackers have criticised the NSA's mass surveillance programme but Wednesday's attack appeared to be the first time it has taken action against the companies who appeared in the documents. Skype and the other companies all deny giving permission to the US government to access their customer data in bulk and without a warrant. Microsoft has said it is improving encryption across its services and Brad Smith, the company's general counsel, has criticised governments for using "technological brute force" rather than legal means to get hold of the information. It is not known whether the hackers have obtained access to other parts of Skype's computer systems, although the Syrian Electronic Army tends to favour hacking high-profile websites and social media accounts rather than companies" core services. Last year, the supporters of the Syrian president targeted major news websites, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Financial Times. The group of so-called "hacktivists" also claimed responsibility for hacking the Associated Press's Twitter account in an incident that sent markets falling after it falsely reported attacks on the White House. The blog by the cyber criminals remained online on Wednesday but the social media posts had been taken down.