While most Americans were winding up their holiday weekends last Monday, the phones at the Vancouver, British Columbia, headquarters of HootSuite, a social media management company, began to ring.
Burger King’s Twitter account had been hacked. Its logo had been replaced by a McDonald’s logo, and rogue announcements began to appear. One was that Burger King had been sold to a competitor; other posts are unprintable.
It was just going to be another boring day on the internet when along came a hilarious hacker with a taste for McDonald’s, Gucci Mane and caps lock. Is a criminal mastermind behind the @BurgerKing (and likely @Jeep) takeover? Nope — just a guy who plays shows in Rhode Island who left an unfortunate internet paper trail.
In response to the hacking of Burger King and Jeep's Twitter accounts this week, Twitter put up a new blog post encouraging people to protect their passwords.
Here are Twitter's tips:
Burger King saw a surprising upside after its Twitter account was compromised on Monday: tens of thousands of people began following its account.
Those people may have started following the burger chain's feed in hopes of seeing more bizarre and profane messages. But by Monday evening, the company tweeted: "Interesting day here at Burger King, but we're back! Welcome to our new followers. Hope you all stick around!"
In a move that will excite McRib lovers the world over, the official Burger King Twitter account announced this morning that the company had been sold to McDonald's as a result of persistent drug-use by Burger King employees.
