Secret service investigating Fox News tweet that Obama was dead

The Secret Service is reportedly investigating six "malicious and false tweets" included claims that President Barack Obama had been assassinated, sent from FoxNews.com's political Twitter feed, @FoxNewspolitics, after the account was hacked early Monday.

Fox News contacted the U.S. Secret Service and Twitter after the organization's Twitter account was hacked. Fox said it "regrets any distress the false tweets may have created."

The messages were posted 2 a.m. Eastern Time Monday, but remained online until noon before being deleted. One read:

BREAKING NEWS: @BarackObama assassinated, 2 gunshot wounds have proved too much.

The first post Monday signaled something was amiss with the account: "just regained full access to our Twitter and email. Happy 4th." Subsequent messages said that the US President had been shot twice while campaigning in Iowa and died shortly afterwards.

The vice president and general manager of Fox News Digital, Jeff Misenti, said the organization had requested a "detailed investigation" into the incident from Twitter as well as advice on measures to prevent it reoccurring.

A group calling itself The Script Kiddies has claimed responsibility for the attack, the New York Times reports. A person claiming to represent the group told Adam Peck, editor of the online student magazine Think, that the group aligned itself with Anonymous and the anti-secrecy movement. 

They said that Fox News has been selected for an attack "because we figured their security would be just as much of a joke as their reporting".