On Monday evening, Burger King’s Twitter account was hacked. The attackers replaced its avatar with McDonald’s branding and changed the biography to read: “We just got sold to McDonald’s because the Whopper flopped.” Several more embarrassing tweets followed. McDonald’s quickly stated on Twitter that it had nothing to do with the hack. On Tuesday morning, Burger King announced that it had regained control of its account.
Every brand and social media team’s worst nightmare! Or is it? The question is whether Burger King suffered from this ‘stunt’. It is still unclear who took over the page, but its follower count quickly jumped from just over 80,000 to more than 100,000, and the news was everywhere.
Some called it a slick PR stunt. For the home of the Whopper, it was a signal to strengthen account security. Most hacks go unnoticed by the public, but when a high-profile account is targeted, it becomes a major media story. Even organisations such as Reuters and The Huffington Post have experienced Twitter hacks. Who is next?
What should you do if you are the victim of such a hack? It pays to be prepared. Better still, assume that any account could be compromised, sooner or later. Security company SafeNet expects many more attacks of this kind and will explain at Infosecurity how to protect data when a breach occurs. Its slogan, ‘Secure the Breach’, says it all.
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