Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2013/02/19/burger_king_twitter_hijack/
Burger King's tweets fried after hijackers pimp Big Macs
Who knew 'whopper123' wasn't a secure password?
Posted in Legal, 19th February 2013 10:27 GMT
Pranksters hijacked Burger King's official Twitter feed on Monday and turned it into a advertising stream for arch-rival McDonald's.
The usual promotional content on @BurgerKing was replaced by updates referencing McDonald's, rap videos, Anonymous and lax password security at the fast food giant. "Somebody needs to tell Burgerking that 'whopper123' isn't a secure password," said one quipped one wag.
A faction of Anonymous claimed responsibility for the hack, which took place yesterday on Presidents' Day, a national holiday in the US. However, other parts of Anonymous are claiming innocence, so it's hard to tell who is to blame beyond "anonymous" people on the internet.
"We're guessing the @BurgerKing social media team is having a bad day," YourAnonNews gloated on Twitter.
After more than a hour of this, the @BurgerKing account was suspended.
The incident, while amusing, likely had no effect at all on Burger King's core business - the fast food chain may even have benefited from the influx of media attention. Burger King websites were unaffected by the Twitter account hijack.
Staff working McDonald's tweets expressed sympathy and distanced themselves from the BK attack. ®