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Syrian Electronic Army hijacks Thomson Reuters' Twitter feed

Pro-Assad hacking group apparently commandeers the financial information firm's Twitter account, sending out illustrations backing the Syrian president.

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Syrian Electronic Army logo. Screenshot by Dara Kerr/CNET

The Twitter account belonging to media and financial information firm Thomson Reuters was suspended Monday after becoming the latest victim of the Syrian Electronic Army.

The hacking group appears to have commandeered the @ThomsonReuters account around 3:30 p.m. PT, tweeting links to several political cartoons supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad. Buzzfeed seems to have captured all of the images tweeted, but as AllThingsD notes, the illustrations aren't exactly funny so use caution when reviewing them.

However, the Syrian Electronic Army's Twitter feed included no mention of the hack.

Thomson Reuters confirmed that its account had been hacked and said it was investigating the incident.

"Earlier today @thomsonreuters was hacked. In this time, unauthorized individuals have posted fabricated tweets of which Thomson Reuters is not the source," a company spokesperson said in a statement. "The account has been suspended and is currently under investigation."

The Syrian Electronic Army is a hacking group that supports the Syrian president's government, and during the last year it has hacked a number of news sites and company Web sites. Although the group has been relatively quiet in recent months, it did claim responsibility last week for breaching the database and defacing the Web site of Viber, an app that lets users call and message via Wi-Fi for free.

In May, it hacked into the Twitter account of the parody news site the Onion and it also has gotten into the accounts of the Associated Press, NPR, CBS, the Guardian, and the BBC.