Reuters’ blogging platform and Twitter hacked

It has been a tough end of the week for international news agency Reuters, as it first had its blogging platform hijacked on Friday by still unknown attackers, then its @ReutersTECH Twitter account compromised on Saturday.

The initial hack resulted in the publication of fake blog posts about the situation in Syria, including a made-up interview with Riad al-Assad, the leader of the Free Syrian Army, in which he says that that the group will be pulling out from the Aleppo province following clashes with the Syrian Army.

The Free Syrian Army reacted by stating publicly that the interview never happened, and blamed the hack on parties supporting Syrian’s current president Bashar al-Assad. Reuters confirmed the hack, but hasn’t said who might be behind it.

In the meantime, the attackers haven’t rested on their laurels and have managed to compromise on of Reuters’ Twitter accounts on Saturday, reports ZDNet.

This resulted in the change of the name of the account – from @ReutersTech to @ReutersME (Middle East) – and the publication of a string of far-fetched posts (via @worldwidenieuws).

No hacker group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.