A Twitter account from The Associated Press was hacked Tuesday afternoon and the erroneous message — to be perfectly clear, it WAS NOT TRUE — sent stocks down sharply for a few moments.
The false message claimed there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Obama had been injured. Again, none of that happened.
Just after 1 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped about 130 points, around 1 percen. It quickly bounced back as the truth — that there had been no such explosions and that the president was fine — became apparent.
By 1:45 p.m. the Dow was firmly back in positive territory, more than 120 points (about 1 percent) up from Monday's close.
The AP's corporate communications department has posted this message on its Twitter page:
It isn't known yet who was behind the hacking.
Update at 2 p.m. ET. Syrian Electronic Army?
It appears the same pro-Bashar Assad group that hacked NPR.org on April 15, the Syrian Electronic Army, is claiming it was behind the AP hacking.
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