Twitter accounts of the New York Post and UPI hacked with fake tweets
17 Jan 2015
The Twitter accounts of the New York Post and United Press International (UPI) were recently hacked with fake tweets on economic and military news, BBC reported.
"World War III has begun" read one post attributed to the Pope.
Meanwhile, according to the New York Post's account hostilities had broken out between the US and China.
It was the latest hack of a high-profile social media account, four days after the compromise of US military command (See: US military command's Twitter, YouTube accounts hacked).
Washington-based UPI confirmed in a statement that both its Twitter account and news website had been hacked.
According to the statement, six fake headlines were posted to its Twitter account and a breaking news banner was added to a fake story about the Federal Reserve on its homepage.
According to a tweet on the New York Post's Twitter account the aircraft carrier USS George Washington was "engaged in active combat" against Chinese warships in the South China Sea.
AFP reported a Pentagon official as saying the tweet about hostilities with China was "not true". The tweets had all since been deleted.
The New York Post reported it was investigating the hack which came just days following US president Barack Obama unveiling proposals to strengthen cyber security laws following a spate of attacks on high-profile US targets, including the Pentagon Twitter feed and Sony Pictures.
Acknowledging the hack and UPI gave a figure of six fake headlines posted over a span of 10 minutes and tweeted, "six fake headlines were posted in about 10 minutes", India Today reported.
The hackers said in another of the tweets, "Just in: Bank of America CEO calls for calm: Savings accounts will not be affected by federal reserve decision."
Over the last few years, several such media houses including the Agence France-Presse and BBC had had their Twitter accounts hacked.
Only earlier this week the Twitter feed of the Central Command of the Pentagon was taken over by a group sympathising with the Islamic State.