Bogus AP rweet about explosion in the White House wipes billions of US Markets

'Bogus' AP tweet about explosion at the White House wipes billions off US
markets


The FBI and SEC are to launch investigations after more than £90bn was
temporarily wiped off the US stock market when hackers broke into the Twitter
account of the Associated Press and announced that two bombs had exploded at the
White House, injuring Barack Obama.








A chart showing the Dow Jones
plunge in the moments after the bogus AP tweet was sent from the agency's hacked
account.






By Peter Foster,
Washington

6:38PM BST 23 Apr 2013


Comments




“Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured,”
said the fake “alert” from one of America’s most trusted news sources, briefly
fooling some news outlets and sending the Dow Jones plunging 145 points in the
space of two minutes — or 1pc.


The benchmark S&P 500 index also fell nearly 1pc in the space of three
minutes as the tweet hit the markets. With the S&P valued at roughly $14.6
trillion at the moment of the false tweet, that three-minute plunge briefly
wiped out $136.5bn (£92.2bn) of the index's value, according to Reuters.






^{A screengrab of the fake tweet sent by hackers from the Associated Press
Twitter account}


SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher said: "You can rest assured we're looking
into it. I can't tell you exactly what the facts are at this point or what we're
looking for, but for sure, we want to understand major swings like that, however
short it was."



Related Articles

• 
  Why the Dow fell so incredibly fast on the AP
  Twitter hack
  23 Apr 2013
  
• 
  Boston suspect: Afghanistan and Iraq wars
  inspired us
  23 Apr 2013
  

The losses were rapidly recovered as it became clear that it was a false
alarm, but coming just over a week after the bombing of the Boston marathon it
took several minutes before it became clear it was malicious cyber
mischief-making.

Russia Today was one of the few outlets that fell for it, re-tweeting the
post and adding “More to come”, but later deleting the tweet.

In Washington, the AP’s chief White House correspondent Julie Pace was forced
to interrupt the daily briefing in the White House press room to confirm what
everyone in the room already knew.

Twitter: SyrianElectronicArmy - Ops! @AP get owned by Syrian Electronic Army! #SEA #Syria #ByeByeObama http://t.co/HTKoO6gIL6

“It appears as though AP’s Twitter account has been attacked,” she said, “so
anything that was just sent out is obviously false.”

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, added: “I appreciate that. And I
can say that the president is fine, I was just with him.”

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Syria Electronic Army, a
group that is reported to have the tacit support of Bashar al-Assad, although
that could not be independently confirmed.

The confusion quickly spawned a round of Twitter jokes comprising unlikely
news events under the hashtag #APTweets. “Commercial flying experience now
viewed as ‘pleasing’,” said one, in an ever lengthening series.

Twitter: AP CorpComm - That is a bogus @AP tweet.

Twitter: AP CorpComm - Advisory: @AP Twitter account has been hacked. Tweet about an attack at the White House is false. We will advise more as soon as possible.

Other jokes focused on the failures of some US 24-hour rolling news networks
when covering Boston bombings last week, including the disastrous decision by
CNN’s John King’s to report that a suspect was in custody for the bombings —
only to have to retract the report within the hour.

“Are you sure you didn’t just hire CNN’s reporters to cover your Twitter
feed?”, asked one Facebook user on AP’s official page, which was used to confirm
that the Twitter account had been temporarily suspended.

Later, satirical news website The Onion gave its own spin on the incident by
tweeting the bogus tweet word for word, but under its own handle.

Twitter: The Onion - BREAKING: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is Injured

Associated Press journalist Mike Baker wrote on his Twitter account: "The @AP
hack came less than an hour after some of us received an impressively disguised
phishing email".

AP said the incident came after hackers made repeated attempts to steal the
passwords of AP journalists.

The agency also said that its mobile Twitter account, @AP_Mobile, had
similarly been hacked.

A spokesman stated that all AP Twitter accounts are to be suspended "until we
can be assured of their security", and warned that followers should not respond
to news posted by the accounts.

The cyberattack is the latest in a string targeting international media
organisations, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
=========================
This is not the first time twitter has been in trouble and I wouldn't be surprised if it closes down, same with facebook.....there is no Security .