Facebook’s official accounts on Twitter and Instagram have been temporarily taken over and then defaced by a group of hackers known as OurMine.
Confirmed as hacked were:
- Facebook’s Twitter account [source]
- Facebook’s Instragram account [source]
- Facebook Messenger’s Twitter account [source]
- Facebook Messenger’s Instagram account [source]
All hacked accounts have now been restored into Facebook’s possession and the defacement posts removed.
The attack has been carried out by OurMine, the same hacker group who last week defaced Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts for the NFL, 15 NFL teams, and sports TV station ESPN. The hacks took place before the Super Bowl, in order to gain the group reputational points and media coverage.
At the time, ZDNet reported that the unauthorized tweets posted on the Twitter timelines of NFL and its teams were posted via an app named Khoros, an app that’s usually used by digital marketing and public relations departments.
According to screenshots taken by users today, the defacement tweets that have been posted on Facebook’s Twitter accounts were posted via the same Khoros app.
Last week, a Khoros spokesperson told ZDNet that their platform was not compromised during the NFL account defacements. In a statement, the NFL confirmed this adding that it detected individual attacks against all of its teams social media accounts.
The OurMine crew has a long history of breaking into high-profile social media accounts. The group relishes media attention, which has always been their primary drive for these defacements. The list of past hacks includes celebrities such as:
- BuzzFeed (website defacement)
- TechCrunch (website defacement)
- Variety (website defacement)
- BBC (Twitter account)
- Play Station Network (Twitter account)
- Netflix (Twitter account)
- Marvel Studios (Twitter account)
- WWE (Twitter account)
- Game of Thrones (Twitter account)
- FC Barcelona (Twitter account)
- Real Madrid (Twitter and YouTube accounts)
- CNN (multiple Facebook accounts)
- New York Times (Twitter account)
- WikiLeaks (DNS hijacking, website defacement)
- Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO, they hacked his Pinterest and Twitter profile)
- Dick Costolo (former Twitter CEO, they hacked his Pinterest account and cross-posted to his Twitter account)
- Jack Dorsey (Twitter CEO, they hacked his Vine account and cross-posted to his Twitter account)
- Sundar Pichai (Google CEO, they hacked his Quora account and cross-posted to his Twitter profile)
- John Hanke (Niantic CEO, they hacked his Quora account and cross-posted to his Twitter profile)
- Zach Klein (Vimeo CEO, they hacked his Quora account and cross-posted to his Twitter profile)
- Ev Williams (Twitter, Blogger, and Medium co-founder, they hacked his Twitter account)
- Marissa Mayer (Yahoo CEO, they hacked her Twitter account)
- Jimmy Wales (former Wikipedia CEO, they hacked his Twitter account)
- Daniel Ek (Spotify CEO, they hacked his Twitter account)
- Brendan Iribe (Oculus Rift CEO, they hacked his Twitter account)
- Adam Mosseri (Facebook VP, they hacked his Twitter account)
- Deadmau5 (music DJ, Twitter account)
- David Guetta(music DJ, Twitter account)
- Channing Tatum (actor, Twitter account)
- Drake (music artist, Twitter account)
- … and loads of other celebrities such as Lana Del Rey, Pewdiepie, Alexa Losey, Kylie Jenner, and many YouTube stars.
