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CNN social media accounts hacked

Posted at 10:55 PM, Jan 23, 2014
and last updated 2014-01-23 22:55:45-05

Atlanta (CNN) — Some of CNN’s social media accounts and blogs were compromised Thursday.

The affected accounts included CNN’s main Facebook account, CNN Politics’ Facebook account and the Twitter pages for CNN and CNN’s Security Clearance. Blogs for Political Ticker, The Lead, Security Clearance, The Situation Room and Crossfire were also hacked.

The posts were deleted within minutes and the accounts have since been secured.

Some of the posts claimed that the Syrian Electronic Army, a group of pro-Syrian regime hackers that has aggressively targeted major news organizations and activists, was responsible.

“Syrian Electronic Army Was Here…Stop lying… All your reports are fake!” one of the posts on CNN’s Twitter account said.

Another post Thursday night on a Twitter account purportedly tied to the group said it was retaliating for “viciously lying reporting aimed at prolonging the suffering in Syria.”

Last year the Syrian Electronic Army claimed credit for a 20-hour-long outage of the New York Times website.

The group also claims to have hacked other major American and British news organizations, as well as Columbia University and rights group Human Rights Watch.

CNN’s Laura Smith-Spark and Nicole Saidi contributed to this report.