New York Post hacked? No, the culprit is an employee

Threat actors hacked the website and Twitter account of the New York Post and published offensive messages against US politicians.

New York Post confirmed that it was hacked, its website and Twitter account were used by the attackers to publish offensive messages targeting US politicians and a call for the assassination of US President Joe Biden. Another message on the tabloid’s account called for the assassination of New York lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez too.

Other politicians targeted with offensive headlines and tweets are NYC Mayor Eric Adams, D-NY Rep, NY Governor Kathy Hochul, Texas Governor Gregg Abbot, and R-IL Rep. Adam Kinzinger.

The company deleted the disturbing tweets and launched an investigation into the security breach. The company discovered that the culprit was an employee that has been fired.

“The New York Post’s investigation indicates that the unauthorized conduct was committed by an employee,” the Post said in a statement to AFP.

“The employee has been terminated”

“This morning, we immediately removed the vile and reprehensible content from our website and social media accounts.”

Immediately after the publishing of the Tweets experts speculated about the involvement of threat actors.

In February, American media and publishing giant News Corp, which owns the New York Post, revealed it was the victim of a cyber attack from an advanced persistent threat actor.

Aox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the News UK British newspaper publisher.

A News Corp spokesperson was not available for comment when BleepingComputer reached out earlier today.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook

[adrotate banner=”9″]

[adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, New York Post)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.