Bangalore: Just two days into the new year and we hear that Skype’s social media accounts has been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA). The SEA is a group that supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The hackers have apparently targeted Skype’s Facebook, Twitter accounts and as well as its blog in a reference to the revelations by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden about Microsoft’s hand in the spying game. SEA also wrought embarrassment on Microsoft which owns Skype by posting CEO Steve Ballmer’s contact on its twitter account with the message "You can thank Microsoft for monitoring your accounts/emails using this details. #SEA."

SEA also posted a message, "Don't use Microsoft emails (hotmail, outlook), they are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments. #SEA." Together these messages  were retweeted more than 8,000 times for those “who missed it,” adding more embarrassment to the Redmond based company. Even Skype’s Facebook account and blog were defaced similarly.

Media companies, including the New York Times and the BBC, have repeatedly been targeted by the SEA which defaced websites and took over their Twitter/Facebook accounts.

However, last month the software giant Microsoft has joined hands with several other top technology companies like Google and Apple to press President Barack Obama to curtail spying by the security agencies.