Apple News users received obscene and racial push notifications following a hacking incident at the Fast Company, a publication owned by Morningstar Inc.'s billionaire founder Joe Mansueto.
On Tuesday evening, the hackers breached the internal systems of the Fast Company Magazine which prompted the shutdown of its website, according to Reuters.
Users Brings the Obscene and Racists Alerts to Twitter
The hackers left the company's main news site defaced, and sent obscene and racist push alerts to Apple users through Apple News.
"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," the Fast Company tweeted.
According to Washington Post, the pair of push notification, attributed to the Fast Company, includes the n-word and contains graphic language.
Users are shocked to received such kind of alert from the company, and they are prompted to post the screenshots on Twitter.
According to the Fast Company, the content management system of the company was hacked. This gave the hackers access to its publishing tools. The hackers also gained the the ability to send push alerts on Apple News.
Apple News said that following the hacking of the Fast Company, and the offensive push notification, it has disabled its channel.
The Fast company is currently investigating the situation, according to CNET. The company have also suspended the feed.
In addition, the company has decided to shut down FastCompany.com until they are sure that the situation is resolved.
As of writing, the company's website showed a 404 error when viewed, according to Reuters.
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Tuesday Hack "Apparently Related" to a Previous One
According to Washington Post, the hackers' description of how the break-in occurred was detailed in an article. This is in the sponsored content.
According to the account, the hackers used the company's WordPress program.
According to Bloomberg, Apple News had 125 million monthly active users as of early 2020. The service "curates stories" from media providers.
Since the investigation is still on going, it is not yet identified how many people received the push notifications.
Based on records, Apple News had 1.8 billion active device users as of the beginning of this year.
The Fast Company's channel was disabled on the Apple News platform after the hack. Aside from this statement, Apple did not issue any other comment on the issue.
According to the Fast Company, the Tuesday hack is "apparently related" to another hack that happened to the company's website on Sunday afternoon.
The company said that similar obscene and racial language appeared on the site's home page and other pages. They decided to shut down the page but it was restored after two hours.
The Fast Company issued an apology to the users who saw the message. "The messages are vile and not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company," the company said.
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