Fake messages were posted from the Twitter accounts of the New York Post and United Press International (UPI) by unknown individuals on Friday.
The accounts were quickly restored and control was regained by their rightful owners, but not before they were used to publish false news about economic and military matters.
On the New York Post 's business department Twitter feed , a message informed that the Federal Reserve announced the need for negative interest rates in order to avoid a market recession due to low oil prices.
The same message was posted by the UPI, which confirmed the incident in a statement on Friday, saying that its website had also been hacked and that the fake news about the Federal Reserve was posted on its website under the guise of "breaking news."
A subsequent tweet on behalf of the New York Poststated that “Bank of America CEO urges calm: savings accounts will not be affected by the federal reserve decision.”
Another fake message posted on social media accounts reported that the USS George Washington, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, had been attacked by Chinese anti-ship missiles, while the next tweet announced that, in response, the US Navy was “engaging in active combat with Chinese ships in the South China Sea.”
The fake message from UPI was followed by another, which reported that Xi Jinping, the President of the People's Republic of China, said that Obama "has forced China to protect its interests by military means."
The hijackers also posted a tweet that purportedly quoted a statement from Pope Francis saying that World War III had begun. It should be noted that the Pope's account was not compromised by any unauthorized person.
The loss of control of the Twitter account was confirmed by the New York Post in a tweet from editor-in-chief Michael Gray.
The method used by the attackers to gain access to the two social media accounts is unclear, but the lack of adequate security measures such as authentication two-factor (2FA) likely facilitated the hijackers, who could have guessed the password or intercepted it through a spear-phishing attack.
Such an attack is targeted and requires gathering information about the victim in order to create appropriate content as bait.
According to users on Twitter, the fake messages were visible for at least 40 minutes until the account owners managed to block illegal access to the profiles.
In a recent similar incident, hackers operating under the name “CyberCaliphate” took over the Twitter of US Central Command, which oversees military action in the Middle East, to spread propaganda.
