The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) resurfaced last week with simple defacements of major British, Canadian, and American media sites, including NBC, CBC, Forbes, the Chicago Tribune, the Telegraph, and the Independent. Closely linked to the Assad regime, and with apparent ties to Hezbollah, the SEA's motives for its Thanksgiving campaign remain obscure.

TechDirt publishes an overview of Syria's Internet censorship, another facet of Assad's information operations capability.

Zscaler believes it's found the Pro-Palestinian hacktivists of AnonGhost distributing the Dokta Chef exploit kit through website defacements.

France's UMP (Union pour un mouvement populaire) conducts internal leadership elections despite hacker disruptions.

Investigation of the Regin cyber espionage campaign continues. Most observers think it's a British operation, with connections to other Five Eyes' services. Circumstantial evidence of GCHQ's hand hasn't stopped breathless op-eds from perceiving Regin as an opening shot (heard 'round the world six years after the trigger was pulled) in a broader US cyber offensive. The security companies who detected Regin defend the delayed timing of their disclosures. Unsurprisingly, Chinese and Russian cyber operations persist, although news about them is somewhat muted by interest in Regin.

Last week's other large exploit — the Sony hack — has apparently caused leaks of unreleased films and personal data of some Sony stars. Some signs point to North Korean responsibility: the Seth Rogen vehicle "The Interview" may be an act of lèse-majesté against Kim Jong-un. Sony has hired FireEye's Mandiant unit to help clean things up.

German, Canadian, Australian, and Qatari surveillance policies receive public scrutiny.