Twitter hackers take over AP account with false tweet

Life

24 April 2013

A tweet posted on the Associated Press account Tuesday reporting two explosions at the White House was bogus and is the result of a hack, the news organisation said.

"Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured," said a tweet posted around 1pm ET (6pm GMT) to the AP’s Twitter feed.

The @AP account has since been suspended on the site. "This was a bogus tweet … the account has been hacked," Paul Colford, director of media relations at the AP, confirmed.

"We will advise more as soon as possible," he said in an email.

The AP Twitter feed "was hacked," CBS News also said in a tweet. "Disregard any AP tweets about disturbance at WH or injuries," it read.

Twitter, and several other media accounts on the site, have been the target of other hacks in recent months. In February the site announced that its servers had been breached by "extremely sophisticated" hackers who may have made off with user names and passwords for about 250,000 accounts.

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have also recently been targeted by hackers on the site. And the Twitter accounts for three CBS brands, including 60 Minutes and 48 Hours, were also hijacked just this past weekend.

At this point it is unclear who is behind the AP attacks, although Twitter appears to have suspended and secured the account. Twitter could not immediately be reached to comment.

IDG News Service

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