Twitter hacker posts bogus report of attack on Obama

NEW YORK: -- A group of hackers broke into the Twitter account of the Associated Press and posted a false news report Tuesday about President Barack Obama being injured in two explosions at the White House.

Within a few minutes the US news wire service said its Twitter feed had been hacked, and immediately suspended the account.

"Our accounts have been hacked," AP spokeswoman Erin Madigan-White told dpa at AP headquarters in New York. "It was a bogus tweet."

White House spokesman Jay Carney, who opened a regular White House briefing about five minutes after the false tweet, immediately said: "The president is fine."

The hoax report read: "Breaking: Two explosions in the White House and the president is injured."

The AP, which is the US news service of record, did not move the report on its news wire. The AP’s twitter account, which is closely followed by media organizations, has 1.9 million followers.

"Hackers compromise main @AP Twitter account, sending out erroneous tweet about #WhiteHouse attack. There has been no attack at #WhiteHouse," AP tweeted from another account, AP Courtside Seat.

A shadowy group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army claimed responsibility for the hoax.

-- The Nation 2013-04-24

Wall Street drop a 100 points after this tweet. Recovered 3 minutes later.

Wall Street drop a 100 points after this tweet. Recovered 3 minutes later.

This is why I HATE the markets in the US - everything is based on speculation and fear - not cold hard facts that show the health of a company.

Goes to show how silly these xxxxx err tweeters are.

Wall Street drop a 100 points after this tweet. Recovered 3 minutes later.

This is why I HATE the markets in the US - everything is based on speculation and fear - not cold hard facts that show the health of a company.

Called macro and microeconomics, both of which play a huge roll in performance of domestics companies and their evaluation. The announcement of such a huge macro event is not speculation since it already occurred. One would have to examine the sectors or equities impacted to determine whether such an event bore any relationship to the macro event. 100 point sell off is nothing and relatively meaningless.

Can anyone give me the hackers numbers? I have a job for them in Thailand...