AP’s hacked Twitter feed claims White House attack; U.S. stocks plummet

The Associated Press' Twitter feed was the victim of an apparent hack on Tuesday.

An ominous tweet, published shortly after 1 p.m. ET, read:

The message was deleted, and the news service's Twitter feed was taken offline.

"The official @AP account has been hacked!" a tweet issued from the @APEntertainment feed read. "No explosions at the White House, Barack Obama not injured."

"The @AP Twitter account has been suspended after it was hacked," @APEntertainment continued. "The tweet about an attack on the White House was false."

The false message sent the U.S. stock market into a momentary plunge, with the Dow Jones industrial average dropping more than 100 points:

"The president is fine," White House press secretary Jay Carney assured reporters soon after the hacked tweet. "I was just with him."

According to the AP's Mike Baker, the apparent hack "came less than an hour after some of us received an impressively disguised phishing email."

It also comes two days after CBS News said it was the victim of a similar Twitter attack, and eight days after the bombings at the Boston Marathon.