Hackers send bogus tweets

Hackers send bogus tweets

As appeared in CNET NEWS

CBS News confirms that the Twitter feeds for "60 Minutes" and "48 Hours" were hacked. Phony tweets accused the U.S. of aiding terrorists.

The Twitter accounts for CBS News programs "60 Minutes" and "48 Hours" were used by hackers earlier today to send out messages accusing the U.S. of aiding terrorists, the network confirmed.

"We have experienced problems on Twitter accounts of #60Minutes & @48Hours; We apologize for the inconvenience; Twitter is resolving issues," read a tweet from @CBSNews. Read another from @60Minutes: "PLEASE NOTE: Our Twitter account was compromised earlier today. We are working with Twitter to resolve."

Bogus messages tweeted from the hacked accounts included this one from the @60Minutes account:

Exclusive: Terror is striking the #USA and #Obama is Shamelessly in Bed with Al-Qaeda.

And these from @CBSDenver, the account of a local CBS affiliate, which also saw its stream commandeered:

New Evidence of CIA Arming Al Qaeda Terrorists in #Syria

and

WMDs Provided by NATO to Al-Qaeda for a False Flag Operation in #Syria

The bogus tweets have since been taken down, but Arik Hesseldahl over at All Things Digital posted screenshots. The hackers' tweets also included links, which Hesseldahl reported were believed to lead to Malware-carrying Web pages.

Last month, the BBC's weather service saw its Twitter feed compromised by hacker group the Syrian Electronic Army, which supports Syrian President Bashar Assad. And last year, news service Reuters saw bogus news stories involving the Middle East posted on its Web site. Al-Jazeera has also been a victim, with hackers sympathetic to the Syrian government compromising the network's short messaging service and sending out faked texts.