HACKERS ATTACK: Apple, Burger King, Jeep, NYT … Who's Next???
Sometimes the attacks are small and simple.
On Monday, Burger King's Twitter account was hacked, and began tweeting pro-McDonald's messages and alluding to rap songs. Hacking collective Anonymous has taken responsibility for the hack.
And today, auto company Jeep has had its own Twitter account hacked in what appears to be a copycat attack.
On the other end of the scale, Apple announced today that it had been hacked by a group from China. Apple say the group is also believed to have attacked Facebook last month.
Apple's announcement came on the back of similar announcements from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, who all recently acknowledged they had been hacked by groups from China.
On the surface of it, these two types of hacks don't seem related. The Twitter attacks, according to a report at Gizmodo, appear to have been the work of a New England DJ, while Apple have said the attack on their system was the result of a huge malware project. Last night Mandiant, a computer security firm, published a report linking hacks of technology companies and news organizations to a sophisticated wing of the Chinese military based in Shanghai. The differences in scale, sophistication and effect are enormous.
However, given the sudden increase in the frequency of the hacks, it seems that we have reached a watershed moment. 2013 is looking to be the year that companies will be forced to take cyber security seriously.