SHAFAQNA (International Shia News Association) – Newsweek magazine’s Twitter account was hacked on Tuesday, with fake messages posted threatening President Barack Obama’s family and claiming to publish confidential government documents.
Newsweek’s background photo was changed to a picture of a person whose face is covered with a scarf and the words “CyberCaliphate” and “Je SuIS IS” — a reference to the shooting attacks in Paris last month.
The tweets showed what looked like government security records, including what the group claimed were confidential documents about “Pentagon warfare in social networks,” and an organizational chart of the Defense Cyber Investigations Training Academy marked “For Official Use Only.”
“Bloody Valentine’s Day #MichelleObama! We’re watching you, you girls and your husband!” said one tweet on Newsweek’s Twitter page.
“We can confirm that Newsweek’s Twitter account was hacked this morning, and have since regained control of the account,” Emily Scheer, a spokeswoman for Newsweek’s parent IBT Media, the magazine’s owner, said in a statement. “We apologize to our readers for anything offensive that might have been sent from our account during that period, and are working to strengthen our newsroom security measures going forward.”
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the “intrusion,” Josh Earnest, White House press secretary, said in a briefing Tuesday. He declined to comment on the claims made by the hackers.
Newsweek wasn’t the only big consumer brand to have been hacked. In a separate incident, an unidentified person or group posted objectionable sexual content on Delta Air Lines Inc.’s Facebook page. Delta removed the offensive posts and said: “We apologize and are investigating.”
The group behind the Newsweek hack, calling itself CyberCaliphate, also took over the U.S. military’s Central Command Twitter feed last month for about 30 minutes, filling it with praise for Islamic State militants and threats against the U.S. military.
Later in the month, the New York Post said its Twitter account was hacked after messages were posted citing bogus breaking news about U.S. interest-rate policy and China firing missiles on a U.S. Navy ship. Delta apologized for the seizure of its Facebook account and said it would share more information as it became available.