back to article Fox News tweets hacked to show Obama death stories

A Twitter account maintained by Fox News has been hacked to post fake "Obama assassinated" stories. The @foxnewspolitics account was seized to post a succession of bogus updates (example below) on the false story that Obama was shot and killed while supposedly campaigning at a Ross' restaurant in Iowa. The obviously …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Maybe no hack?

    Perhaps some kind of internal Fox 'to do' list accidentally being tweeted?

  2. Winkypop Silver badge
    Joke

    Is that the truth....

    ....or did you see it on Fox?

  3. The BigYin

    How do these hacks work?

    Surely after n-failed logins, the account gets locked and needs re-activating? (where n < 5)

    1. Rob - Denmark
      Boffin

      Just guessing

      Here's how tey COULD do it:

      If n<5:

      Try four times. Wait for the user to login (=post to Twitter), thus resetting the counter. Try four times. Repeat.

      OR IF the user don't login, wait an hour (counter is reset after an hour according to http://support.twitter.com/entries/63510-i-m-locked-out-after-too-many-login-attempts) before trying four times again.

      But, more likely, they've used a social hack or someone re-used the same password on other sites.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wait, only 33,000 followers?

    That's a pretty shabby showing for the leading voice of conservative America.

    Or maybe conservative America's not quite smart enough to work out how to get on the Intertwit.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Derp

      Or maybe Fox isn't the leading voice of conservative America? It certainly isn't the only one, last I checked.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Trollface

      An explination

      Fox New's main demographic is grumpy old people who think that nothing good has happened to America since 1960 (except for Ronald Reagan of course).

      And you know how good old people are with technology.

  5. Adrian Jones
    Black Helicopters

    Given the usual standard of Fox reporting

    Maybe it wasn't a hack.

    1. hammarbtyp

      Must of been a hack

      They used sad, death and Obama on the same page of a Fox news website

  6. Wize

    If anything happens to him later today...

    ...it will blow the mind of conspiracy theorists.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "It's a sad 4th for America"

    Meanwhile at Fox, the parties started almost immediately.

  8. Tom 35

    Hack?

    Sounds more like someone at Fox just posted their wet dream.

    If it had been a hack I expect it would be more like...

    Sarah Palin died after choking on a weiner.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Paris Hilton

      "Sarah Palin died after choking on a weiner."

      More like: Sarah Palin dies in freak accident. Linda Lovelace impression blamed.

  9. Kay Burley ate my hamster
    FAIL

    No Hack

    If it were a hack it would have been more positive.

  10. cdilla
    Thumb Up

    Cool

    Nice to see El Reg doing its bit to cement the reputation of LulzSec by acknowledging there is a "LulzSec wannabe" demograpahic out there.

    Unexpected, but good on you all the same.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Not the official twitter account

    That's not their official twitter account. Someone has just created a twitter account, themed it to match and built up followers. Then you guys have written articles on it. lmao and its not even April 1st

    1. GatesFanbois
      Facepalm

      title

      Wrong. It is an official Fox twitter account, they have several and this one has a "verified" icon. Guess the fail belongs to you.

    2. Smarty Pants
      Happy

      Frpom BBC Site

      Fox News Politics is one of the Twitter accounts associated with the industry-leading cable news network.

      Its Twitter account carries the "verified" tick icon, indicating that the feed belongs to the organisation it claims to be.

  12. Martin 66
    FAIL

    Twitter security

    I set up a twitter account on my Blackberry, with a reasonable complex password on Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon, my account was spamming tweets without my knowledge advertising "make $$$$'s" websites. Clearly something not right with the security model here.

  13. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Linux

    Not a smart idea...

    Making death threats against POTUS is a Federal offense. Now the Secret Service techies will be on their case and unlike the FBI those lads know their arse from their elbow.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Meh

      Imagining the death of != making death threats

      However, 'imagining the death' of the american president isn't. Unlike of our sovereign, under the Treason Act 1351...

    2. ratfox
      Angel

      Doubt it

      During the last days in office of the previous President, GWB or GBH or GHB or something, The Onion frequently reported his death in a freak accident.

  14. Sir Runcible Spoon
    Joke

    Sir

    Can someone tell me what twitter is? Every time I hear the name I just think of compromised/compromising publicly available private information and run a mile.

    I don't think I could even bring myself to Google it.

  15. Dr Trevor Marshall
    Unhappy

    My Twitter account was hacked - here's how they did it

    On 14th April I stayed at the Miyako hotel in Los Angeles. I connected to WiFi (hotel had an open network) and accessed twitter. Didn't post anything, but my cookie was apparently transferred in any case. A few minutes later a tweet went out from my Twitter feed with a malicious URL in it.

    Even simpler to do with the new automated android tool :( So I now have a VPN I use when on the road (SSHtunnel) , and have set Twitter to https by default. No harm done (thank goodness), and it was a great wake-up call for me. They could really have sniffed some good login credentials from me, had their bot been looking more efficiently...

    1. DJ
      Unhappy

      Umm..

      Dear Dr.

      I do hope you are not a proctologist.

      Cheers.

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