Many of the tweets spouting anti-Qatar and anti-Iranian messaging, often in Arabic.

Security researcher Chris Kubecka knew that it might be a tough assignment to catch an intruder on the email system at Saudi Arabia's embassy in the Netherlands. But the story only got bigger once she got to work.

“We’re taking down these pages, groups and accounts based on their behavior, not the content they posted,” Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy said.

This closely follows a rash of political hacks across Persian Gulf states that triggered a diplomatic crises.

A spat of apparent security breaches is making an already tense situation in the Middle East worsen, and there are very few details on who is responsible for each incident.