Fox News Twitter Hacking Prompts Secret Service To Investigate Incident

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Secret Service said Monday it will investigate the hacking of Fox's political Twitter account over updates claiming that President Barack Obama had been assassinated.

Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie says the law enforcement agency whose job it is to protect the president will conduct a probe of the false postings and that "we will conduct the appropriate follow up."

Hackers broke into the FoxNewsPolitics account early Monday, leaving a series of six tweets reporting that Obama had been shot to death in Iowa and the shooter was unknown.

In a statement posted on its website, Fox News called the tweets "malicious" and "false."

"We will be requesting a detailed investigation from Twitter about how this occurred, and measures to prevent future unauthorized access into FoxNews.com accounts," said Jeff Misenti, vice president and general manager of Fox News Digital.

An online magazine at New York's Stony Brook University, Think, reported that initial posts around midnight indicated the Fox News Twitter account had been hacked by a group called the Script Kiddies. Harmless posts announcing the group's hacking of the Fox News account were followed by the false posts about Obama, according to Think.

A Think staffer, Adam Peck, wrote on the magazine's website that he had exchanged electronic messages with a person claiming to be with the Script Kiddies shortly after the initial hacking. Later, however, the unidentified person would not confirm that the group was behind the Obama posts, Peck wrote.

Obama spent the Independence Day holiday at a barbecue at the White House with military families and administration staffers.

Fox's political Twitter account has more than 34,000 followers. Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Comments

[YunekFlava]

08:58 PM on 07/06/2011

After the news of the Murdoch scandal in London, who believes FOX NEWS was hacked??? I say the criminals are on the Murdoch payroll, and the Secret Service will flush them out and down where they belong.

[ReedYoung]

01:14 PM on 07/07/2011

Probably so, but I still think my conspiracy theory, that Glenn Beck did it on his way out the door for revenge, is much more entertaining.

Oh, I'm not saying I have any information that he did it. I'm just saying, isn't it an interesting coincidence that this happened the very weekend after he got the sack?

[CoaCoac1]

02:37 PM on 07/06/2011

What do the Secret Service have to do with this, this is a News Outler, Why Why?

[YunekFlava]

08:59 PM on 07/06/2011

Ah, read the article.

[CoaCoac1]

10:28 PM on 07/06/2011

I did read the article, and it didn't explain why the Secret Service was involved!!

[CoaCoac1]

10:30 PM on 07/06/2011

I was wrong yes it does sorry.

[Father Tom]

02:04 PM on 07/06/2011

Former Congressman Weiner offered to help track down the hacker.

[DoWMNGOPrmberB4 TLIX NO]

11:22 AM on 07/06/2011

So smart these hackers, and yet they decide to post a "big no-no" I could have told them this would bring the hammer down. Even the presidents election site was hacked and the Secret Service is staying away. So either these hackers are teenagers attending our spectacular education system here in America, or they are in another country.

[hoagie76]

12:11 PM on 07/06/2011

I never knew a computer nerd or hacker that was taught by the american educational system, what a joke

[Burden of Truth]

02:01 PM on 07/06/2011

Hoagie76, I have know a lot of hackers that were educated in the Public school system.. The rich areas still have Great schools that have more than one working computer.. Our education system is not totally broken..

[Trevor Lind]

11:05 AM on 07/06/2011

I found a strange poem but I feel this represents my strange fascination with Fox News: http://illshowyoumine-untitled.blogspot.com/2011/07/day-90-rupert-murdoch-goes-fox-hunting.html

[Pup99]

10:46 AM on 07/06/2011

Murdoch hacked his own "News" channel?

[canobserv]

11:27 AM on 07/06/2011

wouldn't surprise me at all after todays news.......

[oldguru]

11:31 AM on 07/06/2011

Yep, With the scandal breaking about HIS operations hacking everyone else, Murdoch needs some cover. REALLY bad choice of hack though.
Now the SS will get into just who he is hacking in the US as well.

[Alex Croley]

09:48 AM on 07/06/2011

New Rule: People who take political news from Twitter seriously really needs to get off the computer, unplug it from the wall and throw it into the nearest body of water.

If I want news I'll look on news sources for breaking news.

[Carpetbagger 68]

01:12 PM on 07/06/2011

Corollary #1 - People who take political news from Fox, may as well take it from Twitter. Seriously.

[ReedYoung]

02:24 PM on 07/07/2011

OMG! Great image!

[sanddc]

09:45 AM on 07/06/2011

I wonders how people can go to bed with so much hate in their hearts and rises everyday with even more hate . It wold seem that their hearts would start to blow it self out commonly named a heart attack. I guess it not for me to understand because only God has vengenance toward man.

[AlaskanWannaB]

12:30 PM on 07/06/2011

Social networks give a lot of cowards a platform for their hate. As is known on this site, they are termed keyboard bullies.

[freekybig53]

11:02 AM on 07/08/2011

The act of hate is not for man to decide as just the act of disagreement is considered hate by people that are not interested in hearing the truth and facts even though the person replying with them means no hate intended, just correcting the lies and twisted versions of the truth that the Left and their media have been spreading for the past 7 years !! The feelings of victimization and projection are sure signs that maybe you are in the wrong place !!

[TimeMaster]

09:21 AM on 07/06/2011

Fox immediately recognized the "hack" since their department of "Malicious & False Accusations" usually posts starting at 6am Monday-Friday.
Hopefully there were no Fox viewers harmed as a result of this tweet due to falls or jumping in the air celebrations.
Bad hackers - I hope you are punished to the severest extent of the law or at least whipped in public with wet noodles.

[freekybig53]

09:19 AM on 07/06/2011

I will bet that will be a fair and impartial investigation !!! Well , Obama and his Liberal base wanted to silence Fox News so what better way then to hack their website,set them up and then investigate it themselves ,I see a predetermined verdict here Lemmings !!! And you said Obama wasn't a dictator !!

[scottaarrg]

10:49 AM on 07/06/2011

Has Karl Rove switched sides. Your really starting to think like him. Fair and Balanced investigation? Hope fully as fair and balanced as Fox has been to this administration.

[freekybig53]

02:52 PM on 07/06/2011

Your joking ,right !! The things that Obama and his administration have done to this country could fuel Fox News well into the 22nd century if they laid it on as thick as these Liberal news medias have done to Bush and the Republicans !!

[canobserv]

11:28 AM on 07/06/2011

my goodness......you have taken victimhood to a whole new level

[freekybig53]

02:49 PM on 07/06/2011

Blaming Bush for troubles that Obama has and is still creating is taking victimhood to an outrageously new level !! Its always the Republicans fault never the Democrats in your mind , who is taking victimhood any farther than that !!!!

[Vytautas Kerbelis]

09:02 AM on 07/06/2011

hthe p.r. gimmick most artists of provocation know is to simple...come on with intellegence

[raker]

08:43 AM on 07/06/2011

Is Fox engaging the Secret Service (what the...??) so they can observe an investigation of hacking so Fox will know how to do it better next time? Probably.

[ken607]

07:20 AM on 07/06/2011

headline should read "SECRET SERVICE INVESTIGATES HACK FOX NEWS"

[joeisright]

07:19 AM on 07/06/2011

The hatred for Fox News on the left is not something that is whispered about behind closed doors. No it is thundered from the rooftops by Liberals of all stripes but primarily those from the far left that don’t believe that a viewpoint different from theirs is at all relevant. Free speech is the favourite mantra of the Libs’ when left wing protesters hit the streets but if a radio talk show host or a TV personality utters anything that demeans the left wing ideology an extreme effort to silence them gets underway quickly.

[NormalAmericanMan]

07:53 AM on 07/06/2011

I am a liberal. That said, I don't Fox News because it is simply a different view. I dislike Fox news because they knowingly publish flat out lies and still call themselves news!

And Joe, I am comfortable saying that it is far more likely that the right wing makes a MUCH bigger deal when someone demeans their ideology.

[freekybig53]

09:22 AM on 07/06/2011

You say you don't like Fox because they lie and yet you like any Liberal news even though they have been proven to lie and twist the truth !! How hypocritical of you !!

[sunset812]

09:58 AM on 07/06/2011

Fox News does NOT LIE...you people and the Huff Post are in the tank for Obama. The left have taken over the media, Thank You George Soros! This administration has become as I believed it would a Totalitarian Govt. Fox New backs up their news with videos and proven facts. We are losing our freedoms and our country, because of the liberal America Hating lemmings...Look closely folks your freedoms are being destroyed. But believe me...those of us who love this country for what it stands for will NOT let this continue...Get your heads out of your arses and learn the real history of this country, not what you are being fed by this and other left wing pundants.

[sanddc]

09:37 AM on 07/06/2011

No matter what new post this came one it should be investigated and the pertrators should be prosecuted to the fullent extent of the law. I don't care if they had posted Murdoch or Ailes,Rommney or Pawlenty were assainated it should be looked into and stopped. A person with this much smartness and evil that does something like this must be wishing for something like tthis to happen or hope it inflame hate toward the president. Shame on some of the knuckles heads in this country who just can't ajust to the fact that the staus quo of having a white male as president changed in the last three years. America hatred of races in America will be this country demise sooner or later.

[garymiceli]

07:05 AM on 07/06/2011

The Secret Service should be investigating Fox for counterfeiting news.

[storeysound]

03:31 PM on 07/06/2011

They won the right to do that in court. Disgusting, but true.

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