A Twitter account used by international news agency Thomson Reuters was compromised this week, by hackers affiliated to the Syrian Electronic Army.
The group has claimed responsibility for a series of high-profile hacks against media organizations and messaging apps over the past few months, with hacks targeting the Financial Times, CBS and chat apps such as Tango and Viber.
"Earlier today @thomsonreuters was hacked. In this time, unauthorized individuals have posted fabricated tweets of which Thomson Reuters is not the source," a company spokesperson said. "The account has been suspended and is currently under investigation."
The Tweets, including cartoons relating to the current conflict in Syria, were posted in a half-hour period before the account was closed down, according to a report by All Things D.
The group claimed responsibility for the attack on its official website saying, “The Syrian Electronic Army hacked today the official account of Thomson Reuters and published some truth about what is really happening in Syria...The account was suspended after less than an hour.”
Previous attacks have compromised company blog pages and app pages on Google Play, as well as leaking customer information and compromising official corporate Twitter feeds.
In the wake of attacks earlier this year, Twitter sent out an email to media groups saying, “We believe that these attacks will continue, and that news and media organizations will continue to be high value targets to hackers.”
Author Rob Waugh /Rob Waugh, WeLiveSecurity/
