President Obama's Twitter links were compromised on Monday in the latest attack by the hacker group known as the Syrian Electronic Army.
The commander-in-chief posted on Twitter, "Science fair nightmare: This #climate change denier is the world's most embarrassing dad” and included a link that was expected to go to his website. Instead, followers that clicked on the shortened URL were led to a propaganda video on YouTube called "Syria Facing Terrorism," according to . Several other Tweets sent by the president on Monday also linked to the video.
It's important to note that the president’s custom URL shortener was compromised, not his actual Twitter account, meaning only the links were hacked. An official from Obama's campaign group Organizers for Action confirmed with the Huffington Post that the president's Twitter was not compromised. "An account with our link shortener was hacked. [But] at no point did they have access to the Twitter handle."
The Syrian Electronic Army, an anonymous group of hackers who support the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, took responsibility for the attack. A Tweet sent out by an account associated with the group read : “Obama doesn't have any ethical issues with spying on the world, so we took it upon ourselves to return the favor."
In recent months, the group has attacked the social media accounts of the Associated Press, CNN, The Guardian and NPR.
