The New York Post, one of the biggest New York City daily newspapers, said it was hacked on Thursday after several offensive articles and tweets were published to the newspaper’s website and Twitter account.
The articles and tweets, which were racist and sexually violent in nature, were pulled a short time later. TechCrunch is not publishing the contents of the tweets, several of which called for the assassination of politicians and public figures.It’s believed the New York Post’s content management system, used for publishing stories and articles, was misused to change published story headlines. The offensive tweets were sent via SocialFlow, a popular website plugin used to push stories to social media sites. The tweets also contained links that pointed to web pages on the Post’s website, but which were no longer accessible at the time of writing.
Iva Benson, a spokesperson for News Corp., which owns the New York Post, told TechCrunch: “Confirming that the Post was hacked. The vile and reprehensible content posted has been removed, and we’re still investigating the cause.” Later, the spokesperson claimed an employee was to blame for the “unauthorized conduct,” but declined to say what evidence the newspaper had to show that the employee was to blame.
The breach comes weeks after Fast Company’s content management system was breached to push offensive Apple News notifications to readers. Fast Company pulled its site down for more than a week to rebuild its systems following the compromise. The hacker, who identified themselves by their handle “Thrax,” posted an article on Fast Company’s site describing how they found a “ridiculously easy” default password that was used across several accounts, including an administrator, allowing them access to the news outlet’s systems.
New York Post Says Website, Twitter Account Were Hacked to Post ‘Vile and Reprehensible’ Content
The NYP tweeted that it was investigating the hack:
In a statement published by CNBC, the Post says the hack was the act of an employee: “The New York Post’s investigation indicates that the unauthorized conduct was committed by an employee, and we are taking appropriate action.”
Some of the fake headlines can be seen in the tweet below:
A spokesperson for the company told TechCrunch: “Confirming that the Post was hacked. The vile and reprehensible content posted has been removed, and we’re still investigating the cause.”
Breitbart News will continue to report on this incident.
Although this hack is likely to have occurred within a Post system, it is reminiscent of the major hack of verified Twitter accounts in 2020 that was used to push a crypto scam.
As Breitbart News reported:
The compromised accounts included former President Barack Obama, current Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, businessman and former Democrat presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Other effect accounts reportedly include brands such as Apple and Uber, and entertainers like Kanye West. Early reports included Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s account in the hack, but some are now disputing that.
The hack put the accounts of some of the world’s most powerful people in the hands of an unknown party, who used their control to start a cryptocurrency scam, asking the accounts’ followers to send quantities of Bitcoin to a digital wallet belonging to the hackers.
The scam messages told Twitter users that they would be beneficiaries of billionaire philanthropy, receiving double what they paid into the Bitcoin wallet. “I am doubling all payments sent to my BTC address for the next 30 minutes,” said the scam messages. “You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.”
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