A hacker group used a third party platform to highjack the official Twitter accounts of FC (Football Club) Barcelona and Olympics. The hackers posted a message claiming that Neymar will be returning to the Barca at Camp Nou.
Last month, the same hacker group, defaced the social media accounts of NFL (National Football League) but also 15 of its team, took over Twitter Accounts of FC Barcelona and Olympics on Saturday.
According to Engadget, Twitter has confirmed that the accounts were hacked saying the hacker group, which goes by the name of OurMine, used a “third-party platform” to highjack the 2 accounts.
Soon after the news came out, Twitter locked the accounts and said it was “working closely” with its partners for their restoration.
FC Barcelona said it will conduct a “cybersecurity audit” and the International Olympic Committee said it is already “investigating a potential breach”.
It is said that OurMine is based in Saudi Arabia and has defaced the social media accounts of the NFL, Cardinals, 49ers, Vikings, Bears, Texans, Broncos, Giants, Bills, Bucs, Colts, Eagles, Cowboys, Chiefs, Packers, Eagles, and Browns in January 2020.
Majority of the tweets that were posted by OurMine, the hacker group, came via Khoros – an internet service that is used by PR and Digital Marketing departments for managing social media accounts – which is connected to the social media account as a third-party software/ application.
In the past OurMine has been involved in hacking the social media accounts of celebrities like Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, and even of Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter.
The group first surfaced in 2016 and is said that it is made up of teenagers from Saudi Arabia.
In February itself, OurMine hacked the official Twitter account of Facebook and Messenger – Facebook’s messaging app for its social media website. After hacking the accounts, OutMine posted “Hi, we are O u r M i n e. Well, even Facebook is hackable but at least their security better than Twitter”.
After this, a spokesperson from Facebook issued a statement saying “Some of our corporate social accounts were briefly hacked but we have secured and restored access”.
