X

Reuters Twitter account hijacked, fake tweets sent

The hack of news agency's tech feed comes two days after its Web site was breached and defaced with a phony pro-Syrian government story.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
Expertise I have more than 30 years' experience in journalism in the heart of the Silicon Valley.
Steven Musil

Reuters has suffered a second security breach in two days after hackers gained control of one of its Twitter accounts, the news agency revealed this morning.

The Reuters Tech account was commandeered late Saturday and renamed TechMe, Reuters said today in a tweet on its main Twitter news feed. The account has since been suspended and an investigation of the breach is under way, Reuters said.

The newly renamed feed was then defaced with pro-Syrian government tweets, according to a screenshot of the Twitter page captured by Worldwide-Nieuws.

Fake tweets sent on hacked Reuters Tech feed.

The hack comes two days after hackers broke in to the Reuters.com Web site on Friday and defaced with a phony post purporting to carry an interview with Free Syrian Army head Riad al-Asaad.

"Our blogging platform was compromised and fabricated blog posts were falsely attributed to several Reuters journalists," the company said in a statement and later tweeted.

[Via The Next Web]