False Bombings--The Syrian Electronic Army and the Darkness of Spring Dawn (April 2013)

False Bombings--The Syrian Electronic Army and the Darkness of Spring Dawn (April 2013)

On April 23, 2013, one falsehood ran through Washington in the early spring.
The Syrian Electronic Army, a hacker group that supports the Syrian government, hijacked the Twitter account of the Associated Press and sent out a false bulletin that said, "Explosion at White House, President Obama injured.

The financial markets reacted instantly to this breaking news from a trusted news organization. High-speed trading programs picked up on the words "explosion" and "wounded" and instantly sold off stocks, losing 143 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and 13 trillion yen in the S&P 500.
The panic-driven market shook as brittle as a petal blowing in a spring storm.

Behind the chaos was a sophisticated phishing attack.
The Syrian Electronic Army sent fake e-mails to journalists to steal their credentials. They targeted not only the Associated Press, but also the BBC, NPR, the Guardian, and the New York Times, quietly shaking the Internet space.

After the story turned out to be a false alarm, the market regained its composure. But the curtain of "trust" is not easily sewn back together.
This incident deeply impressed upon the world how "information" and "fear" go hand in hand in the digital world.