Hackers send bogus tweets from '60 Minutes' account

CBS News confirms that the Twitter feeds for "60 Minutes" and "48 Hours" were hacked. Phony tweets accused the U.S. of aiding terrorists.

Edward Moyer Senior Editor

Edward Moyer is a senior editor at CNET and a many-year veteran of the writing and editing world. He enjoys taking sentences apart and putting them back together. He also likes making them from scratch. ¶ For nearly a quarter of a century, he's edited and written stories about various aspects of the technology world, from the US National Security Agency's controversial spying techniques to historic NASA space missions to 3D-printed works of fine art. Before that, he wrote about movies, musicians, artists and subcultures.

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Edward Moyer

April 20, 2013 3:18 p.m. PT

2 min read

The Twitter accounts for CBS News programs "60 Minutes" and "48 Hours" were used by hackers earlier today to send out messages accusing the U.S. of aiding terrorists, the network confirmed.

"We have experienced problems on Twitter accounts of #60Minutes & @48Hours; We apologize for the inconvenience; Twitter is resolving issues," read a tweet from @CBSNews. Read another from @60Minutes: "PLEASE NOTE: Our Twitter account was compromised earlier today. We are working with Twitter to resolve."

Bogus messages tweeted from the hacked accounts included this one from the @60Minutes account:

Exclusive: Terror is striking the #USA and #Obama is Shamelessly in Bed with Al-Qaeda.

And these from @CBSDenver, the account of a local CBS affiliate, which also saw its stream commandeered:

New Evidence of CIA Arming Al Qaeda Terrorists in #Syria

and

WMDs Provided by NATO to Al-Qaeda for a False Flag Operation in #Syria

The bogus tweets have since been taken down, but Arik Hesseldahl over at All Things Digital posted screenshots. The hackers' tweets also included links, which Hesseldahl reported were believed to lead to malware-carrying Web pages.

The Syrian Electronic Army, a group of pro-Syrian government hackers, claimed responsibility for the attack on Sunday. Last month, the BBC's weather service saw its Twitter feed compromised by the Syrian Electronic Army, which supports Syrian President Bashar Assad. And last year, news service Reuters saw bogus news stories involving the Middle East posted on its Web site. Al-Jazeera has also been a victim, with hackers sympathetic to the Syrian government compromising the network's short messaging service and sending out fake texts.

CBS is the parent company of CNET.

Updated 4/21 at 9:15 a.m. PT with Syrian Electronic Army claiming responsibility.