Subscribers of American business publication, Fast Company, were in for a rude surprise on Tuesday when their Apple News notifications went off.
The publication is the latest victim of a hack where its subscribers were sent ‘obscene and racist’ messages on Apple’s news app.
Fast Company shut down its website on Tuesday evening after the site was hacked and problematic messages were sent to Apple users via the iPhone maker’s Apple News service.
News publishers using the Apple News aggregation app can connect their digital publishing tools to Apple News to send push notifications to Apple customers who subscribe to the publisher’s channel. Fast Company said hackers broke into those publishing tools.
Hackers sent two ‘obscene and racist push notifications’ about a minute apart, Fast Company said in a tweet, adding it had suspended the Apple News feed until the situation was resolved.
‘Typically when obscene messages or tweets are published within a hack, the finger usually points at young behaviour in its juvenile sentiment. However, the bigger picture lies with bigger potential implications,’ said Jake Moore, Global Cyber Security Advisor at ESET.
Fast Company’s Apple News account was hacked on Tuesday evening. Two obscene and racist push notifications were sent about a minute apart.
The messages are vile and not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company. (continued below)
‘If the hack is thought to have occurred through shared passwords across multiple accounts then this is another embarrassing attack which could have easily been prevented. If thought to have been used for the administrator account also then this could have been extremely damaging. Hopefully this will act as yet another reminder to all companies using multiple tools to use unique passwords,’
Fast Company’s website was down and the page displayed a 404 error when viewed by Metro.co.uk as of Wednesday morning.
The hack brings to question Apple’s policy on moderation when it comes to racist language in its push notifications on the app.
Metro.co.uk has reached out to Apple for comment.
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