Politico | BuzzFeed | CNN
At this point, it’s almost easier to list media organizations that haven’t been attacked by forces claiming or suspected to be the Syrian Electronic Army. Let’s see, NBC was hacked last year and spread some malware, The Huffington Post reported, but that wasn’t the SEA. The Wall Street Journal was hacked last year, too, but that was the Chinese, according to The New York Times. PBS was hacked in 2011 by a group angry over a critical WikiLeaks program, The Huffington Post reported. And USA Today’s Twitter account was hacked in 2011, but that was “The Script Kiddies,” according to TechCrunch.
On Thursday evening, CNN joined the crowded club of media organizations that have been hacked by the SEA when CNN’s Twitter account was hacked, Hadas Gold reported for Politico.
Around 5:45p.m. EST, CNN’s account began tweeting out messages such as “Syrian Electronic Army Was Here… Stop lying… All your reports are fake!” and “Obama Bin Laden the lord of terror is brewing lies that the Syrian state controls Al Qaeda.” At one point some tweets were deleted before more followed.
CNN also tweeted about the hacking.
Yes, it happens to us, too. CNN accounts hacked. http://t.co/K2rmTKITA5 pic.twitter.com/dOPj4G6T4x
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) January 24, 2014
Next, BuzzFeed’s Michael Rusch reported that CNN’s website was also hacked.
It now appears that @CNN’s website has been compromised. @CNN has now deleted this post http://t.co/fe2n2Ib7EP pic.twitter.com/fFF9dXsunQ
— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) January 24, 2014
And on Thursday night, Catherine E. Shoichet wrote about the hackings for CNN.
The affected accounts included CNN’s main Facebook account, CNN Politics’ Facebook account and the Twitter pages for CNN and CNN’s Security Clearance. Blogs for Political Ticker, The Lead, Security Clearance, The Situation Room and Crossfire were also hacked.
