FBI Investigates Hack on Newsweek Magazine - White House

 

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The FBI investigation is underway into a cyber-attack on the Twitter account of an American weekly news magazine Newsweek, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest told journalists on Tuesday.

“This particular intrusion is one that is already being investigated by the FBI,” Earnest said. “It is a good reminder of how important it is for Congress to act on cybersecurity legislation that the President put forward just last month.”

The hack occurred on Tuesday morning, and while hackers had control, they posted a series of tweets. One of the tweets specifically threatened the Obama family with a "bloody valentine," while another appears to show documents from the Defense Cyber Investigations Training Academy. Another tweet showed personal information from a student enrolled with the academy. In another post, the group claims they are destroying the US "national cybersecurity system from inside."

Last month, a group also identifying themselves as CyberCaliphate hacked into the social media accounts of US Central Command. That cyberattack occured just as President Obama ended a speech on cybersecurity, and hackers posted similar tweets to Centcom's Twitter page.

At the time of those hacks, Pentagon spokesperson Army Colonel Steve Warren stressed that hacking into social media accounts is a far less difficult feat than hacking into government servers, and that the attack was "inconvenient," but did not pose a security threat.

Brian Ries, a former social media manager for Newsweek, tweeted that the FBI warned the magazine in 2013 that Syrian-based hackers were targeting them.