14 DAY TRIAL // A few hours ago, the following tweet was posted from the official Sky News Newsdesk Twitter account: “Colin was here.”
Twitter users didn’t appear to be surprised by the message, considering that the Twitter accounts of numerous major media organizations were hijacked in the past period by the Syrian Electronic Army.
However, this doesn’t appear to be the work of the pro-Assad hackers. They haven’t taken credit for it and, as Sophos’ Graham Cluley highlights, it’s not their modus operandi.
Sky News has issued an official statement on the matter.
“Earlier today the @skynewsbreak twitter feed was hacked and a single message sent. Action was swiftly taken and we are working with Twitter and our in house security to ensure this cannot happen again,” the media organization stated.
However, they haven’t clarified if “Colin” is a disgruntled employee with access to the social media account, or an outsider.
Update. Sky News has issued a second statement to clarify the fact that they haven't been hacked after all.
“Further investigation uncovered, to our relief, that Colin was in fact a ‘disaster recovery’ test message which accidentally went live. Apologies,” the statement reads.