It is a hoax, Wired reported Thursday -- an article that looks like a story on Wired.com and that claims Apple CEO Steve Jobs has had a heart attack.
"A widely-circulated URL which points to an image that purports to be a wired.com story about Steve Jobs health is a hack job," Wired.com said. "We won't provide the URL here but the Twitterverse quickly surmised that the item was not correct." It appears to have first been reported by Mashable.
Someone created a legitimate-looking Web page using Wired's public upload image viewer, which generates a page containing an image under a Wired logo banner, Wired.com said. The hole has been patched, the news site added.
While characteristics of the fake post--such as the Wired logo, byline, and accompanying related stories list--make it look legitimate, the post is plagued with misspellings and grammatical problems.
Rumors about Job's health have been a big deal for the last 12 months, including a fake news item in October about Jobs purportedly having a heart attack. That allegation was reported on CNN's iReport citizen journalism site and led to a drop in the price of Apple stock.
Jobs, who had surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, announced this month that he will take a medical leave of absence to treat a hormone imbalance.
Mashable got a screen shot of the fake Wired.com page with the Steve Jobs hoax report.
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