Hackers compromise AP Twitter account, send out false tweet about White House attack
By The Associated Press - Tuesday, April 23, 2013 - 0 Comments
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Hackers compromised Twitter accounts of The Associated Press on Tuesday,…
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Hackers compromised Twitter accounts of The Associated Press on Tuesday, sending out a false tweet about an attack at the White House.
The false tweet said there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Barack Obama was injured. The attack on AP’s Twitter account and the AP Mobile Twitter account was preceded by phishing attempts on AP’s corporate network.
The AP confirmed that its Twitter account had been suspended following a hack and said it was working to correct the issue.
The false tweet went out shortly after 1 p.m. and briefly sent the Dow Jones industrial average sharply lower. The Dow fell 143 points, from 14,697 to 14,554, after the fake Twitter posting, and then quickly recovered.
A Securities and Exchange Commission spokeswoman declined comment on the incident.
AP spokesman Paul Colford said the news co-operative is working with Twitter to investigate the issue. The AP has disabled its other Twitter accounts following the attack, Colford added.
The Syrian Electronic Army claimed responsibility for the hack. This couldn’t be corroborated.
The FBI has opened an investigation into the incident, spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said. She declined to elaborate.
The SEA has taken credit for a string of Web attacks on media targets it sees as sympathetic to Syria’s rebels. Among the targets the group claims to have hacked are Twitter feeds of Al-Jazeera English and the BBC.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president was fine. “I was just with him,” Carney said at a news briefing.
Twitter had no comment.
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Jeep the latest target of Twitter hacking
By Lindsey Wiebe - Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 5:42 PM - 0 Comments
Hot on the heels of Burger King, another Twitter account compromised
A screen capture of Jeep's Twitter profile after the apparent hacking Tuesday.
The Twitter hacks continued Tuesday, and the latest target appears to be Jeep.
The automotive brand’s profile page appeared to have been hacked early Tuesday afternoon, with the official avatar and background images swapped to those of Cadillac. “Just Empty Every Pocket, Sold To Cadillac,” read the revised text in the bio of Jeep’s official Twitter account.
Tweets from the compromised account — sometimes confusing and often profane — flew fast and furious early Tuesday afternoon.
A sample tweet from the hacked Jeep account.
The Cadillac images were taken down less than an hour after the apparent hacking, and within a few hours the text and offending tweets had also been removed. Jeep also posted a tweet acknowledging the hack.
Screen capture
The messages and profile changes were similar in tone to those that emerged from fast food giant Burger King after the chain fell victim to a hack on Monday, one that saw its official branding swapped to that of McDonald’s.
In another echo of Monday’s hack, Cadillac — the real one — distanced itself from the incident via Twitter. “Just to clarify, Cadillac is not connected to the hack of the @Jeep Twitter account,” the account tweeted.
So how do accounts get hacked in the first place? We can’t speak for Burger King or Jeep, but generally speaking, Twitter says accounts “may become compromised if you’ve entrusted your username and password to a malicious third-party application or website, if your Twitter account is vulnerable due to a weak password, if viruses or malware on your computer are collecting passwords, or if you’re on a compromised network.”
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Burger King hacked on Twitter; name changed to McDonald’s
By Lindsey Wiebe - Monday, February 18, 2013 at 2:08 PM - 0 Comments
Account suspended after profile hacked
A screen capture of Burger King's hacked Twitter profile page, as of Monday afternoon.
Burger King fell victim to a Twitter hack Monday, one that saw the fast food chain’s avatar and name changed to that of competitor McDonald’s.
“Just got sold to McDonalds because the whopper flopped,” read the new text on the profile page Monday afternoon, over the backdrop of an array of McDonald’s Fish McBites — mirroring the images currently shown on the real McDonald’s Twitter profile.
