WASHINGTON — The Secret Service said Monday it will investigate the hacking of Fox’s political Twitter account over updates claiming President Barack Obama had been assassinated.
Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie said 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.”
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. Posts announcing the group’s hacking of the Fox News account were followed by the false posts about Obama, according to Think.
Fox’s political Twitter account has more than 34,000 followers. Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Associated Press
