Hackers Post FALSE Story On Le Devoir Website Saying Premier Jean Charest Dead Of Heart Attack
MONTREAL — "The Quebec French newspaper Le Devoir had its website hacked early Tuesday morning, with a fake article inaccurately claiming that Quebec Premier Jean Charest had died.
The phoney article stated the premier had died of a heart attack at a Montreal hospital and that the health facility had confirmed the news — which turned out to be false.
The story was quickly picked up by radio stations and by individual subscribers on Twitter before it was declared a hoax.
LeDevoir.com was shut down between 2:30 a.m. and 4 a.m. while technicians tried to restore the website. Le Devoir denied the news at 4:56 a.m. in an apology published on its website.
"According to information we received this morning, our site was hacked," read the text.
"We are currently trying to find out what exactly happened. We offer our apologies, of course to the premier and to our readers. Le Devoir cannot comment further until the source of the problem has been identified."
On July 4, Fox News also fell victim to hacking, with its politics Twitter feed repeatedly announcing President Barack Obama had been shot dead.
And, in June, a hacker gained entry to the federal Conservative party's website and posted a news release falsely reporting that Prime Minister Stephen Harper had been rushed to hospital after choking on a hash brown at breakfast."
Montreal Gazette
Montreal Gazette
