White House Bomb Tweet Sent out After AP Twitter Feed is Hacked
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Paranoia over cyber security went into overdrive on Tuesday when the Twitter account of the Associated Press, one of the world’s biggest news agencies, was hacked.
A tweet was put out around 1pm, saying: "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured."
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News outlets immediately went into a frenzy and the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly took a sharp dive. It plunged more than 128 points within seconds of the report, recovering equally as fast when the report was found to be false.
The AP’s mobile app was also affected. The agency said there was also a phishing attempt on its corporate network before the hacking.
The Twitter account was swiftly taken down by the AP.
White House spokesman Jay Carney issued a statement, saying: "The President is fine. I was just with him."
The AP said shortly after the incident that its Twitter account has been suspended and that "it was working to correct the issue."
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