Tornado Alley (PROG)

[Susie924]

July 4, 2011
Apparently Hacked, a Fox News Twitter Account Sent Out Alarming Posts
By LIZ ROBBINS and BRIAN STELTER

A series of alarming Twitter posts about President Obama appeared on Fox News’ Twitter account for political news early Monday morning, and the Web site for the cable television network said it was a victim of hacking.

The Twitter account, @foxnewspolitics, one of many that is operated by Fox News, claimed that the president died while campaigning in Iowa, but gave no source for the news. On Monday morning, FoxNews.com first posted a brief statement saying that the reports were incorrect, and that it regretted “any distress the false Tweets may have created.”

The six messages — which as of late Monday morning were still available online — created a flurry of attention overnight and senior Secret Service officials were gathering on Monday morning to discuss them, said to a law enforcement official who declined to be identified because of an investigation into the matter.

A spokesman for the Secret Service, George Ogilvie, said, “We’re not commenting on any of this.”

Jeff Misenti, the vice president and general manager of Fox News Digital, said in a later statement on Monday that the news organization will be requesting “a detailed investigation from Twitter about how this occurred, and measures to prevent future unauthorized access into FoxNews.com accounts.”

The FoxNews.com political news Twitter account, which has 36,302 followers, had been dormant since Friday, but at about 2 a.m. Monday, a message was posted there that eerily presaged the posts that would follow about the president: “just regained full access to our Twitter and email. Happy 4th.” The next post said that the president “has just passed. The President is dead. A sad 4th of July indeed.”

The next one said he had been “shot twice in the lower pelvic area and in the neck; shooter unknown,” and offered the disturbing detail that he “bled out.” The next post said that the president was shot at Ross’s restaurant in Iowa.

President Obama had been spending the weekend with his family at Camp David, and returned on Sunday, according to the official White House schedule. For the holiday on July, he is scheduled to host a barbecue, concert and fireworks on the South Lawn for members of the military.

The Twitter posts were still available online Monday morning, even as the Web site posted this statement:

“Hackers sent out several malicious and false Tweets claiming that President Obama had been assassinated. Those reports are incorrect, of course, and the president is spending the July 4 holiday with his family. The hacking is being investigated, and FoxNews.com regrets any distress the false tweets may have created.”

The last Tweet stated: “We wish @joebiden the best of luck as our new President of the United States. In such a time of madness, there’s light at the end of tunnel.”

The Twitter messages appeared to be stylistically different from others on the Fox News politics account. They were in a different tense from past posts to that Twitter account, and they were not written in the urgent style appropriate for actual news of this gravitas. Also, the Tweets were not attributed to any source, while many in the past from this account have been attributed.

Several news accounts reported that Script Kiddies, an anonymous hacking group, claimed responsibility for the tweets. Links to an interview that a member of the group gave to a student Web magazine at Stony Brook University — one that appeared to claim responsibility for the hacking — were disabled on Monday morning.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/business/media/05fox.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print