Page Loader
#WeirdNews: Someone just hacked Facebook's official Instagram and Twitter accounts

#WeirdNews: Someone just hacked Facebook's official Instagram and Twitter accounts

Feb 08, 2020
11:53 am

What's the story

In what would certainly qualify as a weird news, hackers broke into the official accounts operated by Facebook on Twitter and Instagram. The attack took place a few hours ago by a group which goes by the name 'OurMine'. However, now, it seems like that the accounts have been recovered and are working properly. Here is more about the attack.

Twitter hack

Official Facebook and Messenger accounts hacked on Twitter

As reported by The Verge, the hackers took over the official accounts of Facebook and its Messenger app on Twitter and Instagram. In the Twitter-based attack, they used both of the compromised accounts to tweet out a message taking credit for the hack and saying that "Even Facebook is hackable but at least their security is better than Twitter."

Battle

Reposting battle with Facebook's social teams

The tweeted message, which even provided an OurMine email and website, was deleted and posted multiple times on the microblogging platform. Popular app reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong documented this battle, highlighting how quickly the hackers' tweets were being deleted by Facebook's social media teams but were again by posted by the threat actors.

Twitter Post

Here's a glimpse of the reposting battle

Instagram hack

Instagram-based hack had no message

Separately, on Instagram, the main Facebook and Messenger accounts were compromised, but in this case, the hackers only posted a bunch of images highlighting their logo. Notably, both of the accounts on these platforms were recovered in less than 30 minutes from when the hackers, who also took credit for the hacks of NFL and ESPN accounts, first started showing their activity.

Questions

Many details still remain unclear

While the accounts have now started working normally, the question remains how exactly the hackers managed to break into them in the first place. Facebook and Instagram teams have not commented on the matter, but a Twitter spokesperson confirmed the hackers managed to tweet the messages using a third-party platform dubbed Khoros. And, apparently, it can post on Instagram too.