Jeep Twitter Account Hacked, Joins @BurgerKing in Recent Attacks

By Dan Milano February 19, 2013

ABC News

Stop us if this sounds familiar. A huge brand name has its Twitter account hacked. The account's bio is changed to say that the brand has been sold to a competitor. Tweets are sent from the account spouting racial epithets, insinuating that employees are partaking in drug use, tagging @YourAnonNews and using the mysterious hashtag #300.

It's a social media "Groundhog Day" today for anyone familiar with what happened to @BurgerKing's Twitter account just 24 hours ago. Today, Internet pranksters have apparently taken over the @Jeep Twitter account with a new bio suggesting the company was "sold" to Cadillac and using plenty of less than brand-friendly language.

Fifty minutes into the attack, @Jeep had yet to shut its account down, nor had it deleted the rogue tweets. However the account had been stripped of a background featuring a Cadillac with McDonald's branding and the stream of profanity-laden updates had been halted.

(Update: 3:03pm EST) The Jeep account has deleted most of the offending tweets and brand images are back up on their page. The account grew by about 6,000 followers in the time it was hacked.

Burger King gained 30,000 followers following yesterday's attack. After regaining control of its account, the company responded to their fans by way of this tweet:

After two days in a row of high-profile brands becoming the playthings of hackers, will someone else's account be hacked tomorrow?

(Update: 3:35pm EST) Or today. @MTV and @BET have now been potentially compromised, with Tweets of a similar ilk being shared at this moment. Fans are weary, as the two accounts are owned by the same parent company, the "hack" might be a PR stunt.

(Update: 3:50pm EST) @MTV/@BET confirmed their "hacked" status as fake.