Reuters hacked (again) with fake story of Saudi minister's death
The international news source's Web site is the target of repeated hacks that post phony stories, which seem to have the similar theme of being pro-government forces in Syria.
Someone must have it out for Reuters. For the second time in two weeks, the blogging platform for the news source's Web site has been hacked into and false stories have been illicitly published.
Today's sham article reported that Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal had died, according to Reuters. The first bogus story, posted earlier this month, was about the rebel Free Syrian Army suffering setbacks in their battle against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
"Reuters did not report the false story and the post was immediately deleted," Reuters News' director of global communications Barb Burg said in a statement. "We are working to address the problem."
In addition to the Web site's blogging platform, Reuters' Twitter account was also hacked in the past two weeks. Hackers got into the Reuters Tech account, renaming it TechMe, and false tweets were posted about the Syrian rebels being defeated in a major battle.
It's still unclear who is behind these news hacks. But Reuters hints that it may have been pro-government forces in Syria. In its article today it writes, "Saudi Arabia has emerged as a staunch opponent of Assad."
This news comes as an investigation by the watchdog group the Electronic Frontier Foundation discovered that Syrian activists, journalists, and government opposition groups are the focus of directed malware attacks. The malware, called AntiHacker, installs surveillance software into targeted people's computers under the guise of protecting them from viruses.