The Syrian Electronic Army has apparently hacked The Onion's twitter account, exposing the groups seriously morbid sense of "humor". "UN retracts report of Syrian chemical weapon use: "Lab tests confirm it is Jihadi body odor", went one tweet.
We've seen fake hacks before (http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/19/mtv-twitter-hack-prank-was-a-risky-ploy-for-attention/), and given that The Onion is a satirical news site, it was hard to know whether this "hack" was just another tasteless ploy for attention. As of about 45 minutes ago (11:15 PT), all of the suspected tweets have been erased. So, either it was a legit hack or The Onion editorial board had a change of heart.
The Syrian Electronic Army has been on a cyberwarfare tear, including a false tweet about an explosion at the White House from the AP twitter account, which caused a brief dip (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/23/ap-tweet-hack-wall-street-freefall) in the stock market.
Twitter is reportedly implementing (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/twitter-authentication/) a more secure two-step verification to make it harder for cybercriminals to infiltrate accounts. Clearly, it can't come fast enough.
We've included a screenshot of the tweets below.
Via: TechCrunch