Burger King has been sold to McDonald’s — or so claimed the hacker who took over the fast food chain’s Twitter account on Monday.
Followers of @BurgerKing started noticing some peculiar changes just after noon Eastern time. The company’s Twitter icon was changed to a McDonald’s logo and the background wallpaper started advertising McDonald’s new Fish McBites. Soon followed the”news” that Burger King had been sold to rival McDonald’s as a result of persistent drug-use by its employees. Then things got seriously strange, with tweets carrying everything from photos of “employees” shooting drugs to racial epithets and more. The hack lasted for almost an hour and fifteen minutes, until Twitter suspended the account. Buzzfeed has screenshots of Burger King’s Twitter timeline.
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While Burger King hasn’t commented about the hack, it did tell the Associated Press that it plans to post a statement on Facebook later today to apologize for the offensive posts. McDonald’s, however, took to Twitter early on to deny any responsibility for the hacking:
While there were rumors that hacker group Anonymous had laid claim to the attack as part of its #OpMadCow campaign, their Twitter account was suspended, and the claim has not been confirmed.
Whoever caused the social media mayhem, Burger King gained over 30,000 Twitter followers on their account since it was compromised. The site was back up and running — and in proper hands — late Monday night: