Hackers bite into Burger King’s Twitter account

19 Feb 2013

Photo via Burger King's Facebook page

Hackers who accessed Burger King’s Twitter account and tweeted that the fast-food giant had been sold to rival McDonald’s prompted McDonald’s to issue its own tweet, saying it wasn’t responsible for the breach.

“Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking,” McDonald’s tweeted after hackers took over Burger King’s Twitter account yesterday and gave it a McDonald’s makeover.

The hacker (or hackers) changed Burger King’s profile picture to a McDonald’s logo and Fish McBites, accompanied by the message “Just got sold to McDonalds because the whopper flopped.” The location had been posted as “In a hood near you.”

Hacked

Hackers also tweeted obscenities and the online equivalent of graffiti.

Burger King Worldwide Inc suspended its Twitter account about an hour after it learned of the attack at 12.24pm EST (5.24pm GMT) yesterday, Reuters reported company spokesman Bryson Thornton as having said.

“It has come to our attention that the Twitter account of the BURGER KING brand has been hacked,” the company said in a statement. “We have worked directly with administrators to suspend the account until we are able to re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings.”

Thornton said Burger King’s social media team and an outside agency manage the Twitter account, but he declined to say how many people knew the account’s password.

He said they hope to have the Twitter account up and running again soon.

Tina Costanza was a journalist and sub-editor at Silicon Republic

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