MISCO .CO.UK/NEWS
Date 16th August 2012
By Iain James
This month has turned into something of a security nightmare for esteemed news agency Reuters, which yesterday announced a second hack into its blogging platform and the third breach overall since the start of August.
This time, the cyber hoodlums left a post reporting the death of Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister. Reuters News global communications director Barb Burg said that the bogus piece had been taken down immediately and the company was working to solve the problem. The news agency has yet to identify the perpetrators of the attack, Burg added.
The new breach follows the temporary suspension of the blogging platform on 3 August, when hackers gained access to it and posted false reports, attributing them to journalists working for Reuters. The fabricated stories revolved around the Syrian conflict and contained what purported to be an interview with Riad al-Asaad, commander of the FSA (Free Syrian Army).
A mere two days later, the same fate befell the @ReutersTech Twitter account, which was hijacked and changed to @ReutersME. The hack led to 22 messages posing as tweets from Reuters News. Some of the false reports dealt with the situation in Syria, with one claiming that the FSA had suffered heavy losses in battles with government forces. Another said al-Asaad had declared a tactical withdrawal from Aleppo imminent. There were also tweets involving the US, one of them alleging that President Barack Obama had agreed to ban further investigation into the 9/11 attacks. According to another, the US had been one of the al-Qaeda sponsors.
