One of the Twitter accounts of the New York Times was apparently hacked the morning of January 22, and did not intend to publish the frightening tweet that appeared.
The @NYTvideo account tweeted "BREAKING: leaked statement from Vladimir Putin says: Russia will attack the United States with Missiles."
— newyorkist (@Newyorkist) January 22, 2017
The tweet was taken down by about 10 a.m., The Hill reports, and the last tweet on the account, from about 15 minutes later, says the issue is being investigated.
— New York Times Video (@nytvideo) January 22, 2017
The hacker group OurMine, which claimed responsibility for hacking Britney Spears's and Bob Dylan's accounts last month to post statements that the singers had died, posted on the New York Times account that some third party had done the hacking and they were flagging the issue.
OurMine has hacked a number of high-profile social media accounts over the past year, ostensibly to help bring to light security vulnerabilities and offer their services to fix them, though the group has admitted to hacking to stealing information in the past.
OurMine, as usual, offered its help to the New York Times. "Message from OurMine to @nytvideo: contact us to tell you how to fix the issue"
— Jonathan of Kowloon (@GlobeSvcs) January 22, 2017