Hackers gained control of Fast Company‘s Apple News account overnight, forcing Apple to disable the account after two offensive push notifications were sent to the channel’s followers.
The Apple News Twitter account tweeted that Apple had disabled Fast Company‘s channel following the “incredible offensive alert” that its subscribers had received on their Apple devices.
An incredibly offensive alert was sent by Fast Company, which has been hacked. Apple News has disabled their channel.
An incredibly offensive alert was sent by Fast Company, which has been hacked. Apple News has disabled their channel.
— Apple News (@AppleNews) September 28, 2022
Fast Company soon tweeted a confirmation of the hack, saying that it had taken down its website following the breach until it is able to secure its systems:
“Fast Company’s Apple News account was hacked on Tuesday evening. Two obscene and racist push notifications were sent about a minute apart. The messages are vile and are not in line with the content of Fast Company. We are investigating the situation and have suspended the feed and shut down FastCompany.com until we are certain the situation has been resolved.”
We are investigating the situation and have suspended the feed & shutdown https://t.co/U9iS8QOhkW until we are certain the situation has been resolved.
— Fast Company (@FastCompany) September 28, 2022
Before it disappeared, Fast Company‘s website included a message from hacker group “postpixel” in which they described how they had been able to execute the attack by infiltrating Fast Company‘s WordPress back-end. Postpixel also ridiculed the publication’s efforts to secure its publishing tools and administrator portal.
It appears that hackers gained access to login credentials that allowed them to Fast Company‘s Apple News content management system to send out the push notifications.
The hackers also claimed to have accessed thousands of employee records, which they intended to share on a forum for trading information stolen in security breaches.
