Hijacked Fox News Twitter Account Falsely Claims Obama Shot Dead

Frankie70 writes with word of a Twitter-account hijacking that's raised eyebrows today, supplying a link to the account in question. From the Telegraph's account: "'The Twitter account of the American Fox News Politics team was compromised and used to falsely announce the death of the U.S. president. Hackers, who identified themselves as 'The Script Kiddies' and said they shared the spirit of prominent hacking group Anonymous, used the account to write: 'BREAKING NEWS: President @BarackObama assassinated, 2 gunshot wounds have proved too much. It's a sad 4th for #america. #obamadead RIP.'"

Comments

HOW?

[sortius_nod]

This is your corporate account. How does this happen?

Re:HOW?

[RevWaldo]

Words go in, tweets come out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that.

.

Re:HOW?

[ricky-road-flats]

Take a breath, man, Jesus.

I am not an american, I don't support either of your two parties. I made no comment on Obama, or any of the other news outlets. None are perfect, and I didn't say any were. However, in my eyes, what thankfully little I see of Fox News is the worst example of biased shrill fearmongering bullshit which twists facts, ignores common sense, and generates maximum anger, fear and hate - and leads to rants like yours, which so beautifully illustrates the problems that are making the US political system so badly uncompromising, reactive and broken.

Whether you agree with Fox's agenda (and you cannot realistically deny they have one) or not, the fact is they fucked up on a matter of IT security here, and it takes down a peg or two, and I think that's a good thing, are enjoying it. I could hope that they might start to take themselves a little less seriously, but it's a little to much to ask.

Re:HOW?

[RMingin]

Entertainingly, that's exactly how I'm selecting my password at work currently. The one system expires my password every month, and demands upper, lower, and number. Last month was June2011, before that May20112011 (eight char minimum), and April2011. These are atrocious and horrible passwords, but I fed it good ones like g0g0g4dg3tp4$$w0rd until I couldn't remember them anymore, That and the one time I got PUNISHED, PUBLICLY, for forgetting the horrible new password I'd been required to choose.....

If you're going to implement password cycling, keep it reasonable. The system I access has nothing more sensitive than the last four digits of a credit card number. We really don't need monthly cycling unless we're dealing with something really secure.

I refuse to believe it

[imadork]

until I see the long form death certificate....

Re:I refuse to believe it

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't happen anytime soon, following strict Christian Laws they dropped his body over the Atlantic ocean.

Re:Not even trying, are we?

[KDR_11k]

Yeah, you can tell it's an obvious fake as they call it a "sad day". Fox would never do that.

Why aren't they deleted yet?

[bigjarom]

I don't understand why these tweets have not yet been deleted 6-7 hours after they were posted. Does Fox News not know you can delete tweets?

Re:Why aren't they deleted yet?

[forand]

They actually replaced an old tweet saying they had regained control of the account. Fox has also addressed the issue in mass media outlets Why haven't they addressed it on their account? Who knows.

Re:Why aren't they deleted yet?

[PhilHibbs]

First, hack the account. Change the password.
Second, post a fake tweet or five, make them obvious and crass.
Third, post that the account has been brought back under the control of Fox News and locked down while the hack is investigated. Change the password again.
Finally, start posting some more fake tweets an hour or so later, but be more subtle about it.

false flag!

[Titan1080]

Every one of these 'hacker' news stories brings us one step closer to an internet kill switch. The government knows that the riots will begin soon in the US, and they are trying to set things up to make it hard to communicate. Beware.

Re:false flag!

[Jeremi]

The government knows that the riots will begin soon in the US, and they are trying to set things up to make it hard to communicate. Beware.

Of course the most insidious part of the government's plan was the pre-planting of paranoid conspiracy theories on all the major tech sites, so that when the time came, the Internet's system operators would turn on each other in a ferocious bloodbath of nerd terror.

Re:Only news because it is Fox, not CNN or MSNBC..

[Xest]

So I guess you're voting for the Republican candidate in 2012 then?

Re:ironically it's not far from the truth...

[m50d]

Tax revenue raises itself, when the economy grows, and is more likely to do if the economy isn't being bled by government and kept from growing.

All the money that comes into the government goes out again, usually into economic circulation. So while it's in the interests of the economy to cut taxes on economic activity, it's also worth taxing money that would otherwise be taken out of circulation. And yet it's tax cuts on the income of the rich (which contributes far less to economic activity than that of the poor) which the republicans are most strongly advocating.