Reuters blogs hacked with fake story about Syrian rebel retreat

Fadi Zaidan/AP

Wire says it thinks it knows who is responsible for the hack.

Reuters became involved in the Syrian conflict in a way it didn't intend to on Friday, when someone hacked into its blogging site and published a fake post purporting to quote a Syrian rebel leader saying his forces were withdrawing from Aleppo. Reuters indicated several incorrect stories went out, but the one post we know of ran on Jeffrey Goldfarb's blog, which usually covers economics and finance. The newswire hasn't said who it thinks is responsible for the hack, but the computer hacking outfit with the most prominent track record in this conflict is Syrian Electronic Army, loyal to the Syrian regime and known for breaking into foreign sites it perceives as sympathetic to the rebels. Reuters' main news site is reporting that the Syrian army is mounting a huge offensive against the rebels in Aleppo, but that the rebels are still there. Reuters entire blogging site is down, but thanks to Google's cache, we can still see the phony post, a partial screenshot of which is below: 

Read the entire story at The Atlantic Wire.

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