On the 28th of September, the audience of Fast Company, who read business publications through Apple News, received racist messages just before Wednesday morning.
Hackers had managed to access the internal systems at Fast Company magazine and then proceeded to send push notifications containing racial slurs. The push notifications were sent through Apple News.
Fast Company has told Engadget in a statement that hackers got access to their news channel and then went on to send their readers "obscene and racist" push notifications."
They further said they had experienced such a hack on Sunday afternoon and managed to keep the hackers at bay for some time. However, the hackers successfully gained access to their news channel and website, defacing it and sending obscene messages to subscribers.
The publication with Engadget said: "Fast Company’s content management system account was hacked on Tuesday evening. As a result, two obscene and racist push notifications were sent to our followers on Apple News about a minute apart. The messages are vile and are not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company. We are investigating the situation and have shut down FastCompany.com until the situation has been resolved."
Apple News Reaction
Apple News has made a public statement saying that they are now aware of what happened with Fast Company and trying to ensure everything is under control.
In a statement on Twitter," An incredibly offensive alert was sent by Fast Company, which has been hacked. Apple News has disabled their channel," they said.
According to reports from The Washington Post, the hackers had gained access to their site and then defaced it. They went on to make a sponsored post in which they gave detailed information on how they gained access to Fast Company magazine.
Some users took screenshots of the hacker's message before the Fast Company's website was taken down.
The hackers said that the default password of the Fast Company's WordPress site was too easy to crack. They said it was with the default WordPress password they used to access Apple News API keys and other necessary information needed to get full access.
Measures Taken
Since Fast Company knew their website had been hacked, they took down the site. Currently, the website of Fast Company is down and showing a 404 code.
It was reported that the hackers couldn't access the records of customers of Fast Company because their records were not there. Their customers' records and files seem to be kept in another database.
However, their employees' records might not be safe as the hackers stole drafts, passwords, and other vital information.
Apple News, on their part, has disabled the Fast Company's channel to prevent any other problems.
Newsvot has not received any information regarding the identities of those responsible for hacking into the Fast Company's website.