Disgraceful: NBC's hijacked Twitter feed claims Ground Zero attack

by Steven Mostyn - Sep 12 2011, 05:37

With the world focused on a possible terrorist attack against America as the country marked the solemn 10-year anniversary of 9/11, hackers were busy using NBC and micro-blogging site Twitter to roll out false attack messages.

More pointedly, NBC’s official news feed service on Twitter was hacked yesterday and used to push headlines claiming at least one hijacked jet airliner had crashed into New York’s ‘Ground Zero’ commemoration site.

The hack attack in question was carried out by members of a group known as The Script Kiddies, and saw them posting the following fabricated and thoroughly insensitive tweets to the NBC feed:

“Breaking News! Ground Zero has just been attacked. Flight 5736 has crashed into the site, suspected hijacking, more as the story develops.”

“Flight 4782 is not responding, suspected hijacking. One plane just hit Ground Zero site at 5:47. #groundzeroattacked”

“This is not a joke. Ground Zero has just been attacked,” the group reiterated in a later post. “We’re attempting to get reporters on the scene.”

Labeling the hack as “reckless and irresponsible”, NBC has apologized to its news feed’s 130,000 followers and has said it is working alongside Twitter to fix the problem.

This isn’t the first time The Script Kiddies have used a reputable Twitter news feed to spread sensationalist falsehoods across the Interwebs. Earlier this year the group temporarily grabbed control of the Fox News feed and used it to claim President Obama had been assassinated.

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