McDonald's Denies Hacking Burger King's Twitter Account
Burger King (BKW) has regained control of its social media presence after its Twitter account was hacked over the weekend, and modified to look like the takeover had been engineered by fast food rival McDonald's.
A little after noon Monday, parties unknown took control of Burger King's official twitter feed, @BurgerKing. Whoever was responsible has a sense of humor: They changed the account's name to "McDonalds," switched the profile photo to the McDonald's logo, and posted a new bio asserting that Burger King had been sold to McDonald's "because the whopper flopped."
The hacker then proceeded to fire off a string of profane tweets, including claims that Burger King employees were using drugs in the bathrooms, and that the chain would offer a gram of bath salts free with every Big Mac.
After more than an hour of mayhem, the account was suspended, and eventually restored to the company's control. On Monday night, the feed's rightful managers announced that they were back, and made reference to the thousands of new followers they'd gained during the fiasco.
Interesting day here at BURGER KING®, but we're back! Welcome to our new followers. Hope you all stick around!
- BurgerKing (@BurgerKing) February 19, 2013
The only hint so far about who might have been responsible for the breach -- and it's far from conclusive -- is that, at one point, a tweet was sent encouraging people to follow the @YourAnonNews account, suggesting someone from the Anonymous hacktivist collective might have been involved.
More amusing, though, is who denied responsibility: McDonald's. The McDonald's social media team (which, we imagine, is taking a hard look at its own security this morning).
We empathize with our @burgerking counterparts. Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking.
- McDonald's (@McDonalds) February 18, 2013
Matt Brownell is the consumer and retail reporter for DailyFinance. You can reach him at Matt.Brownell@teamaol.com, and follow him on Twitter at @Brownellorama.
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