It’s been a while since we had a high-profile media feed hijacking, but tonight someone sent an Apple News notification from Fast company with a racist slur and an invitation to a certain sexual act.
The publication confirmed the hack. “Fast Company’s Apple News account was hacked Tuesday night. Two obscene and racist push notifications were sent about a minute apart. The messages are mean and do not match the content of Fast company. We are investigating the situation and have suspended and closed the feed FastCompany.com until we are sure the situation has been resolved.”
An article posted on Fast Company’s website before it disappeared contained a message from “postpixel” detailing how they could carry out the attack and ridiculing attempts to secure the outlet’s publishing tools. The message claims they got in thanks to a password shared by many accounts, including an administrator.
The hackers also pointed to a forum for trading information stolen in security breaches, where they shared the same details, starting with posts posted two days ago. The forum post said they are releasing thousands of employee records, as well as draft posts from the database, but said customer information was stored in another database that they had no access to.
It‘It’s unclear exactly how many people received the blast, but a look at social media reveals it was widely distributed. Vox Media employees who do not pay for subscriptions to Fast company say it appeared on their phones too.
Update September 27, 9:45 PM ET: Added statements and tweets from Fast Company and Apple News.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.