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Recent Twitter Hacks Lead to Real-World Consequences

It is beginning to be very apparent how much effect Twitter and social media in general is beginning to have on the real world. Twitter has led to many major changes in the real world; people have been fired because of posts on Twitter, diplomatic tensions have become created between the United States embassy in Cairo and the President of Egypt, revolutions have been fueled, and even lives have been saved. With real tweets having this level of power, t

On Tuesday, April 23, the Associated Press became victim to a recent cyberattack when it posted a tweet claiming that there had been explosions in the White House and that the President had been injured. Another Twitter account associated with the Associated Press quickly responded to the tweet to inform followers that the account had been compromised, but the damage had already been done. The Dow Jones industrial average quickly sank by more than 140 points. Generally, Twitter hacks have done little more than featured juvenile obscenities, but this is the first major case where a Twitter hack has led to serious real-world consequences.here can be genuine danger when fake tweets are made, something that has been occurring quite often recently through hacking.

Supposedly, this cyberattack was perpetrated by a group that refers to themselves as the Syrian Electronic Army, who has claimed credit for the Associated Press tweet that led to a plunge in the stock market. The group describes itself as an organization that intends to attack and deface websites in order to combat what they believe to be anti-Syrian media coverage. Personal information regarding the members of this group is currently unknown, so they could simply be activists or pranksters, or perhaps people who are affiliated with Syria’s al-Assad government itself.

Considering this is far from the first hack that a major Twitter account has had in recent months, Twitter has been pressed to respond to these exceeding security issues. It has been reported that Twitter hopes to launch a two-step verification system in the near future that will hopefully prevent future Twitter hacks from occurring, resulting in the same problems that were caused by the hack on the Associated Press’ Twitter account.