A business news outlet said it temporarily shut down its website after a hacker accessed the website and sent “obscene and racist” notifications to iPhone users.
Fast Company, a business-focused news outlet, announced Tuesday evening that its content management system had been hacked and that two offensive messages containing the N-word and graphic language were sent to followers using the Apple News app within a minute. The company responded by taking down its website and disabling the Apple News feed while it investigates the security breach.
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“The messages are vile and are not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company,” the company said in a statement tweeted. “We are investigating the situation and have shut down FastCompany.com until the situation has been resolved.”
The website is still down as of Wednesday morning.
The company later clarified that the hack followed another reportedly related hack of its website, in which similarly offensive language appeared on the website’s front page. Fast Company responded to the hack by shutting the site down for two hours.
The notifications were posted in screenshots on Twitter. It isn’t clear who sent the obscene notifications, although one of the notifications added that “Thrax was here,” according to MarketWatch. It is unclear who Thrax is.
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The hacker posted a message on Fast Company before the website was taken down detailing how he or she broke into the website, according to Engadget. The hacker said the company had a default password that was easy to crack. The weak password allowed the hacker to steal authentication tokens, Apple News API keys, and other details about the employees. “Thrax” later posted on a forum that he or she intended to release a database containing 6,737 employee records, including emails, password hashes, and unpublished drafts.
Apple News also confirmed that it has shut down Fast Company’s channel for the time being.
