Associated Press Hacked On Twitter, False Claim Of White House Bombing Sent, Stock Market Nose-Dives In Reaction

After a long string of highly-publicized cyber attacks on high-profile Twitter accounts, today's was doubtlessly the worst so far.

The AP's communications team quickly tweeted from its own account that the main AP Twitter was compromised, but investors had already panicked. The Dow Jones industrial average immediately plunged by more than 140 points.  And there it is: After years of hacks that typically involved little more than obscene language, Twitter's subpar security measures have now caused serious real-world consequences.  Many hacks happen when account owners use guessable passwords or access Twitter over public Wi-Fi and shared computers. If one person who tweets from a corporate account loses his or her phone, an entire corporation's Twitter account could be at risk.