TheTwitter accountof NBC News has beencompromisedby a hacking group calling themselves the ‘script kiddies’ and has been Tweeting out false messages about a terrorist attack on Ground Zero. The Script Kiddies group is apparently sympathizing with hacking group Anonymous as the name appears to refer to the Department of Homeland Security calling Anonymous‘just a bunch of script kiddies’earlier this month.Updated with statements from NBC and Twitter below.
The group has just changed the NBC logo to a graphic and altered the ‘about’ section of the account as well. The about info links to a Twitter account that has been suspended.
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NBC has confirmed the hacking with aTweetfrom Ryan Osborn, their Director of Social Media, saying “The @NBCNews account has been hacked. Working on it. Please don’t retweet any misinformation.”
Twitter is apparently acting on the matter quickly as theNBC News Twitter accounthas also been suspended now.
Update: NBC has issued astatementabout the hacking:
The NBC News twitter account was hacked late this afternoon and as a result, false reports of a plane attack on ground zero were sent to @NBCNews followers. We are working with Twitter to correct the situation and sincerely apologize for the scare that could have been caused by such a reckless and irresponsible act
Twitter has responded as well by stating that they do not comment on individual accounts, but referred us tothis post on the Twitter blogabout account safety, implying that the hackers managed to gain access by obtaining the NBC account’s password, not by compromising Twitter’s servers.
Story byMatthew Panzarino
Matthew Panzarino was Managing Editor at TNW. He’s no longer with the company, but you can follow him on Twitter.(show all)Matthew Panzarino was Managing Editor at TNW. He’s no longer with the company, but you can follow him onTwitter.
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