Social media tools are an effective way for businesses and bigwigs to communicate with their customers… that is, as long as those companies or people are in charge of their own accounts. When hackers “borrow” their social presences, much less good things can happen. And today at least three high-profile accounts found that out the hard way.
Delta airlines was first up, with an apparent prankster gaining control of their Facebook page and adding a few new posts in… questionable taste, shall we say. Several websites grabbed screenhots of the posts, which included gross but work-safe images of phallic worms paired with links discussing specific sexual acts.
It took about an hour for Delta to regain control of their Facebook presence. The airline confirmed later in the afternoon that a third party had compromised their Facebook account, and apologized for the “unauthorized, objectionable content that was posted.”
Twitter CFO Anthony Noto, meanwhile, apparently did what many a less well-known Twitter user has done in the past, and clicked on a link he should not have. That link, unfortunately, let a spammer hijack his account.
Re/Code grabbed a screenshot and reports that Twitter quickly realized what was going on, temporarily locked the account, and managed to restore it to its rightful owner, their boss.
Newsweek also had their Twitter account briefly hijacked today, as The Verge reports, but theirs was much more serious and less funny than a company executive having trouble with his own product. In Newsweek’s case, someone or someones identifying themselves as the Cyber Caliphate, sympathetic to ISIS, used the account to tweet threats to the Obama family.
This is far from the first time this year that a news organization has seen their Twitter presence go rogue; several were hijacked and tweeted fake news just last month.
by Kate Cox via Consumerist
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