White House Assures Obama Is Safe Following Hacked News Account Claiming Explosions
The White House has assured citizens that President Barack Obama is safe and well after a hacked Associated Press tweet claimed that he had been injured in two explosions in Washington, D.C.
"The president is fine," White House spokesman Jay Carney said, according to USA Today. "I was just with him."
A tweet earlier on Tuesday from The Associated Press, one of the largest news organizations in the world, had posted: "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured."
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Not long after that, however, AP took down its Twitter account and announced that it had been hacked.
"The AP twitter account has been hacked. A tweet about an attack at the White House is false. We will advise on acct. status," the news organization said in a statement.
The effects of the hacked tweet were felt in the stock market, with the Dow Jones plunging by more than 128 points in mere seconds after the tweet. It recovered just as quickly, however, when news came out that the post was false.
There is no information yet as to who might have hacked AP's account, and why they posted such a tweet. The incident, however, comes as America is still reeling from a bombing attack at the Boston Marathon last week that left three people dead and over 200 injured.
While one of the suspects behind the bombing, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has denied that he and his older brother had any ties to major terrorist organizations overseas, they appeared to have used Islamic terrorist guidelines from the Internet to make the pressure cooker bombs used in the attack.
With the attack fresh on people's minds, major cities across America remain on alert and wary of any possible attacks while authorities are trying to discern whether the brothers did work alone and if there are any further threats.
