The FOX News Politics Twitter account has been hijacked and used to post fake reports about president Obama being assassinated.
The attack began around two hours ago with a message from the hacker that ironically said: "
Just regained full access to our Twitter and email. Happy 4th."
Soon afterwards, the first Obama announcement was posted claiming that "
@BarackObama has just passed. The President is dead. A sad 4th of July, indeed. President Barack Obama is dead."
In the tweets that followed, the person controlling the Fox account claimed the president was shot two times, in the lower pelvic area and in the neck, while campaigning at a restaurant in Iowa.
"
We wish @joebiden the best of luck as our new President of the United States. In such a time of madness, there's light at the end of tunnel," the hijacker tweeted.
The compromised @foxnewspolitics account bears the verified by Twitter mark. It has around 33,500 followers and is included on nearly 2000 watch lists.
The messages stopped within an hour. It's not clear if Fox regained access over the account, but the rogue posts haven't been removed and there's been no statement from the network regarding the incident.
This is not the first time when Fox was targeted by hackers or when one of its Twitter accounts was hijacked. Back in January 2009, thirty-three high-profile Twitter accounts including that of Fox News were hijacked and used to spread fake information. Fox's account in particular was used to make comments about Bill O'Reilly's sexual orientation.
More recently, the now-defunct hacking outfit Lulzsec broke into several Fox computer systems and
leaked the personal information and email passwords of its employees. The attack came after the same group leaked a database containing the personal information of X-Factor auditionees.
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