The Twitter accounts of three more major companies may have been attacked by hackers—or were they? Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIA) (NASDAQ:VIAB)’s MTV and BET Twitter accounts appeared to have been hacked earlier today, although now it seems as if it was just a marketing stunt. However, Jeep’s account has apparently been hacked in a way similar to that of Burger King Worldwide Inc (NYSE:BKW)’s account, which means that hack is probably real.
There are several tweets on MTV’s account indicating that it was hacked. On BET’s Twitter account, there are also several tweets about it being hacked along with MTV’s account.
However, not too long ago MTV tweeted: “We totally Catfish-ed you guys. Thanks for playing!” (For those who don’t know, the term “catfished” refers to deceiving someone, usually over social media). BET’s account tweeted something similar: “#fakehackedswag !!! salute to @MTV for rockin this!”
That would seem to indicate that whoever manages the accounts was just playing a small prank by using #MTVhack. Either that or the hacker still has control of both accounts and is taking advantage of all the exposure his/her hacking has brought to MTV’s account. But at this point it appears to be nothing more than a marketing stunt.
The hacking attack on Jeep’s Twitter account wasn’t quite as tame as the possible ones on MTV’s and BET’s accounts. That attack involved actually replacing Jeep’s logo with that of the company’s competitor Cadillac. It was similar to the one involving Burger King Worldwide Inc (NYSE:BKW)’s account on Monday, which involved swapping Burger King’s logo for that of competitor McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD).
The attack on Jeep’s Twitter account also involved changing the company’s bio and saying that it had been sold to Cadillac, which is owned by General Motors Company (NYSE:GM). The rest of the content was also remarkably similar to the language used on Burger King Worldwide Inc (NYSE:BKW)’s account while it was hacked. Jeep did get a handle on its Twitter account pretty quickly and had the bogus tweets removed.
