NBC Twitter hack attributed to 'Christmas tree' trojan

A group of hacktivists was able to compromise the NBC News Twitter account on Friday by tricking the network's social media head into clicking on a malicious attachment. According to an MSNBC report, a group known as The Script Kiddies commandeered control of the account to send a series of tweets falsely reporting an attack on Ground Zero in New York, two days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The mischief makers may have obtained the account's login information by duping Ryan Osborn, NBC News' director of social media, into clicking on an attachment, which installed a copy of the password-stealing "Christmas tree" trojan onto his machine. The erroneous tweets were removed soon after they were posted, and the FBI is looking into the matter. Twitter has since suspended the account of the The Script Kiddies, who also have hacked into the Facebook account of Pfizer.