Facebook Accounts on Twitter, Instagram Hacked via Third-Party Platform

Twitter declined to name the third-party platform, but a screenshot of the tweets show that the posts came from social media management tool Khoros.

By Agencies | Updated: 8 February 2020 14:02 IST

Facebook Accounts on Twitter, Instagram Hacked via Third-Party Platform

Facebook confirmed that its corporate social media accounts were hacked

Highlights

OurMine hacking group is said to be responsible for the hack
Facebook confirmed that its corporate social media accounts were hacked
Twitter said a third-party platform was responsible

Twitter confirmed on Friday that the official Twitter accounts of social media giant Facebook and its Messenger platform were hacked. A Twitter spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the accounts were hacked through a third-party platform. Facebook's Instagram account was also hacked through third-party platform, and a photo of the hackers' group was posted.

"Hi, we are O u r M i n e. Well, even Facebook is hackable but at least their security better than Twitter," posted the hackers.

The account of Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey was hacked in August, allowing an unauthorised person to send public tweets including racial slurs and curse words to his 4 million followers before Twitter secured the account.

Twitter declined to name the third-party platform, but a screenshot of the tweets show that the posts came from social media management tool Khoros, reports CNET.

Khoros is a Web service used by digital marketing and PR departments to manage social media accounts, and is connected to a social media account as a third-party app.

"As soon as we were made aware of the issue, we locked the compromised accounts and are working closely with our partners at Facebook to restore them," a Twitter spokesperson added.

The hacker group OurMine hijacked in the past Twitter accounts of more than a dozen NFL teams in January before the SuperBowl.

The same group has also compromised Twitter accounts of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

The group has been active since 2016 and is believed to consist of several Saudi teenagers.

In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said, "Some of our corporate social accounts were briefly hacked but we have secured and restored access."

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