The Syrian Electronic Army, a group of pro-regime hackers, reportedly took over the Twitter account of CBS’ 60 Minutes as well as other CBS brands yesterday, saying the U.S. is ‘in bed’ with terrorists.
This is the second Twitter take-over in the last week for the SEA, which often attacks publications for their coverage of the situation in Syria. The group took responsibility for the hack on its website and in a YouTube video, according to AllThingsD, which shows screenshots of the 60 minutes Twitter as well as new SEA Twitter and Facebook accounts (the social media giants continue to take down SEA accounts.)
The statement on it’s website reads, “The Syrian Electronic Army hacked today several Twitter accounts of CBS-American Network and published thought it the truth.”
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In this weekend’s hack, the SEA tweeted fake headlines that accused the U.S. government of helping terrorists with money and weapons of mass destruction. It then linked to a number of websites. What these websites contained — and whether they were malicious — is unknown, though they reportedly serve malware.
One of the tweets said, “Exclusive: Terror is striking the #USA and #Obama is Shamelessly in Bed with Al-Qaeda.”
CBS took down the tweets and suspended both the 60 Minutes and 48 Hours accounts. It looks like the CBS Denver account is still up and running, however.
Last week the SEA hacked into NPR’s content management system and Twitter account to pull a similar stunt. The group changed headlines of a number of NPR’s articles to read, “Syrian Electronic Army Was Here.” In 2012 the group took over a Syrian-focused liveblog hosted by Al Jazeera.
CBS image via watchwithkristin/Flickr
