Melbourne IT chief executive Theo Hnarakis will step down by the end of year after more than a decade as CEO according to afr.com

The move comes on the day that it appears hackers associated with the Syrian Electronic Army Group hackers gained access the New York Times and Twitter amongst others although Melbourne IT who hosted the websites domain names.

However, the story did not mention the hacking incident but the timing is hard to overlook.

The story quotes the Melbourne IT chairman Simon Jones as saying “During [Mr Hnarakis’] tenure as CEO, shareholders have enjoyed an annualised total shareholder return of 40 per cent per year.  “The board of Melbourne IT would like to thank Theo for his exceptional contribution, huge energy and passion for the business.”

Hundreds of publications have covered the story about the sites being taken down by the Syrian group including  usatoday.com, PcWorld.com, and Forbes.com Melbourne IT cited as the weak link in the hacking.

According to Tony Smith, general manager of corporate communications at Melbourne IT; The credentials of a Melbourne IT reseller (username and password) were used to access a reseller account on Melbourne IT’s systems, The DNS records of several domain names on that reseller account were changed, including nytimes.com.”