James Delahunty
10 Sep 2011 3:03
Hackers tweet phony terrorism reports on NBC's Twitter.
With the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist atrocities in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania approaching, and with U.S. authorities urging vigilance amidst a "credible threat", Americans are keeping an eye on the media and hoping it all passes without incident again this year.
Unfortunately for followers of NBC's Twitter account, some hackers decided to exploit the current atmosphere and post messages about a phony terrorist attack happening in New York.
"Breaking News! Ground Zero has just been attacked. Flight 5736 has crashed into the site, suspected hijacking. more as the story develops," one of the tweets read.
NBC released a statement explaining the tweets. "The NBC News twitter account was hacked late this afternoon and as a result, false reports of a plane attack on ground zero were sent to @NBCNews followers," the statement read.
"We are working with Twitter to correct the situation and sincerely apologize for the scare that could have been caused by such a reckless and irresponsible act."