A brief but potentially disastrous hack hit the Twitter accounts of news agencies The New York Post and UPI, posting misinformation about China's military firing at the USS George Washington.

The Pentagon immediately belied the information saying the American Navy aircraft carrier is safely docked in Japan, and Twitter also swiftly fixed the hack, but the false tweets rang alarm bells in newsrooms and government offices across the capital after they were retweeted by users.

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The Twitter hacks on news organizations' accounts were reportedly done by a group claiming to be part of Cyber Caliphate, which is allied with terror organization ISIS.

Experts warned that these types of malicious information fed into hacked social media accounts could have disastrous consequences.

"The problem is that the communications between the U.S. Navy and Chinese Navy are not very good," said Gordon Chang, author of "The Coming Collapse of China", citing that the U.S. has had trouble contacting Chinese military hotlines in the past, and could pose a problem in the speedy rectification of such false information.

Twitter has managed to regain control of the affected accounts, and as usual has told owners to set two-step verification and strong passwords. Two-step verification should stop most attacks coming from other regions.

This is not the first time a hacking collective from the Middle East has attacked U.S. media. Throughout 2014, the Syrian Electronic Army hit different news organizations for "falsely" reporting on the events in Syria.

The pro-Assad hacking group was able to take down multiple sites, issuing threats to the owners. This new attack appears to come from a different organization that is connected to ISIS.

Attacks from Muslim extremist groups have escalated since the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris that killed 12 staff members of the satirical magazine. 

Reports say up to 19,000 websites have been attacked by a Muslim group under the name AnonGhost, claiming to be connected with ISIS and other fundamentalist groups.

The new attacks on U.S. media will be addressed by President Obama in his State of the Union address, where he will look for more partnership between the government and private sector over cyber attacks.

TagsUPI, New York Post, hackers, ISIS