Burger King’s Twitter account hacked; turns into McDonald`s

Burger King suffered one of the biggest social media hacks on Monday as their official twitter handle @BurgerKing tweeted “We just got sold to McDonalds! Look for McDonalds in a hood near you (sic)” at about 10.30 pm IST.

Zeenews Bureau Miami: Popular fast-food joint Burger King suffered one of the biggest social media hacks on Monday as their official, and verified, twitter handle @BurgerKing tweeted “We just got sold to McDonalds! Look for McDonalds in a hood near you (sic)” at about 10.30 pm IST. In what can be described as an absolute PR nightmare, the hacker(s) went on to change the Twitter handle’s name, calling itself ‘McDonalds’, a competing fast-food company, and even changed their profile picture to that of the McDonald`s logo – A capital yellow ‘M’ over a red background. The account remained compromised for over an hour as the news spread across the Twitterverse, to reactions ranging from fascinated shock to amused joy before getting suspended, probably thanks to the company’s PR team’s not-so-swift reaction. The list of amusing tweets posted by the hacker included a picture of a disgusting burger with the tweet: “This is why we were sold to @McDonalds. All our employees crush and sniff percocets in the bathrooms (sic)”. “It has come to our attention that the Twitter account of the BURGER KING® brand has been hacked. We have worked directly with administrators to suspend the account until we are able to re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings. We apologize to our fans and followers who have been receiving erroneous tweets about other members of our industry and additional inappropriate topics”, Bryson W. Thornton, Director, Global Communications & Culture, Burger King Corporation, said in a statement issued to Zeenews.com. McDonald`s has issued a formal tweet addressing the issue: “We empathise with our @BurgerKing counterparts. Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking.” Hacking group Anonymous is among the suspects for this fascinating attack as the fallout will only be gaged over the next few days.