Associated Press Twitter account hacked, alarming tweet sent from account

 

 

 

 

The Twitter account for the Associated Press was briefly hacked Tuesday afternoon.

 

A tweet was sent out from the @AP Twitter account that stated there had been explosions at the White House and that President Barack Obama had been injured. The tweet was false and immediately AP Twitter followers began notifying the AP that it appeared their account had been hacked.

 

It only took a few minutes for Twitter to suspend the account. The Associated Press then sent out a tweet on one of their other accounts to inform followers that the main account had in fact been hacked.

 

The news organization also sent out a story on the wires about the situation, saying the hack "came after hackers made repeated attempts to steal the passwords of AP journalists."

 

The DOW dropped 130.85 points on Wall Street in two minutes after the hacked tweet was sent, but the market rebounded quickly.

 

The cyber attack on the AP is the just the latest to come in recent days. CBS News was also hit earlier this week.

 

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The DOW dropped 130.85 points on Wall Street in two minutes after the hacked tweet was sent

 

:o

I wonder if their password was password

I wonder if their password was password

 

Nah, I reckon it was something a little harder to crack, like password1

Nah, I reckon it was something a little harder to crack, like password1

It's password2 now! :lol:

Associated Press, 60 Minutes security hacks prompts Twitter to up security

 

 

It only took hackers a few minutes and twelve words.

 

The stock market plummeted $134 billion and the world did a double-take.

 

Two days later and Twitter is reportedly making major security changes.

 

According to Wired, Twitter is testing a new two-step verification process that they'll soon roll out to users.

 

Users will now be asked to provide a second piece of information to verify their identity, as opposed to just a password.

 

The hack also prompted a New York based web developer to create ismytwitterpasswordsecure.com . The site looks similar to Twitter's login page and says "In order to help everyone out a little we've created an algorithm that will examine your password and tell you if it's secure."

 

But when users attempt to enter their info they are bombarded with a surprise.

 

The site warns "No no no no no no no no don't be an idiot!" in bold font on a bright red background. "Don't ever type your password on a site that isn't Twitter.com. Same goes for Facebook and Linked In."

 

It's a good, albeit brash reminder.

 

 

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The DOW dropped 130.85 points on Wall Street in two minutes after the hacked tweet was sent, but the market rebounded quickly.

 

 

 

I have no idea what that means, but I assume it's bad :stunned:

It's password2 now! :lol:

 

Nah

 

That's too hard to remember, it will be qwerty1 :laugh3:

I have no idea what that means, but I assume it's bad :stunned:

turn it upside down and you have bitcoins

:| Are people that bored?

Official twitter pages for things like AP should have more verification, because of the amount of influence it has, it's crazy that they just would have had one password the same as me or you, but unlike any normal person or even a celebrity what is posted on their twitter evidently can affect the market drastically.

 

I just think its a bit silly this will now affect everyone.

Twitter warns news organisations over hacking amid Syrian attacks

 

The Syrian Electronic Army regularly links to material supporting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad

 

Twitter warns news organisations over hacking amid Syrian attacks

 

News organisations including the BBC have been warned by Twitter to tighten security in the wake of several high-profile hacks.

 

The Guardian became the latest publication to be hit by a group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army. A previous attack on the Associated Press caused stocks to dip. Security experts have said Twitter itself needs to take more action to ensure its users are protected. An email sent by Twitter to news organisations on Monday urged them to take a close look at their internal measures for dealing with social media.

 

Advice included making sure passwords were more than 20 characters long and made up of random strings of letters and numbers. The social network also advised having just "one computer to use for Twitter".

 

"This helps keep your Twitter password from being spread around," the site added. "Don't use this computer to read email or surf the web, to reduce the chances of malware infection."

 

Security researcher Rik Ferguson, from TrendMicro, told the BBC this particular piece of advice was somewhat unworkable. "The point of Twitter is that it's instant, and you can react instantly. If you have to run back to the office to get to a particular computer to use Twitter, that's obviously going to impact upon its use."

 

Twitter also encouraged organisations to have a closer relationship with the site to ensure account details are kept up to date. "Help us protect you," the company said. "We're working to make sure we have the most updated information on our partners' accounts.

 

"Please send us a complete list of all accounts affiliated with your organisation, so that we can help keep them protected."

 

Beyond advice to external organisations, there is increasing pressure on Twitter to bolster its own security. Specifically, there have been calls from security professionals for two-factor authentication. This would require two steps, the entry of a password as well as another action.

 

On Facebook, for example, two-factor authentication is triggered when users try to log in in an unexpected way, such as from a computer in a different country.

 

A report in technology magazine Wired last week suggested Twitter had begun trialling two-factor technology - but this is yet to be confirmed by the company. Mr Ferguson noted that as Twitter remained a free service supported by advertising, two-factor authentication could prove costly.

 

He suggested one way to raise funds for enhanced security would be to charge major users to become "verified" - a status currently given to accounts which Twitter has checked are genuine.

 

"One thing Twitter should be looking at now is for any account which is verified to have a two factor log-in process," he told the BBC. "If you make a nominal fee for verifying accounts - they can make sure that the accounts are protected from not only malware-based attacks, but also that staff are more protected from phishing."

 

The Syrian Electronic Army's typical tactics to date have included sending "phishing" emails to glean log-in information from unsuspecting victims. Once access to an account had been gained, the SEA would then begin to post tweets - in some cases mimicking the style of the victim.

 

This technique was most damaging in the case of the Associated Press. When the news agency's main account - @AP - was breached, the SEA posted that US president Barack Obama had been injured in a blast at the White House.

 

It was of course false, and swiftly corrected by other organisations - and later by AP itself - but not before $136bn (£88bn) was temporarily wiped off the New York Stock Exchange. US financial authorities are to investigate the incident to "make sure that nothing nefarious in markets took place", according to the New York Post.

 

Meanwhile, the SEA - which appears to support the Assad regime - has vowed to continue its attacks on media organisations.

 

The BBC's Weather account was among those successfully hacked

 

An anonymous user believed to be working for the group told Vice magazine: "They already started suspending us from the internet by closing our accounts, our pages and suspending our domain names, but they failed and they will keep failing.

 

"We will not stop or despair. If they close a Twitter account, we will open a new one; if they close a Facebook page, we will create another one; if they suspend our domain names, we will buy new ones."

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22351987