Tweet Tweet Hack Hack

This week has been quite an adventure for twitter fans, followers, tweeters, and oh right…hackers! Twitter account hacks have been a problem in the past, but this week, new hackers have taken control of major, public watched accounts in a such a close period of time that leaves brands and people wondering how safe their accounts on Twitter are, and who will be the next account hacked.

First up, the hackers took control of Burger King’s account on Monday, changing it to say it was now McDonald’s after being sold to the golden company because the “whopper flopped”. Hackers also posted a variety of offensive tweets stating employees were using drugs in the bathroom and various other poor taste tweets. Like they always say however, bad publicity is still publicity, and this stunt actually garnered over 5,000 new followers as it was going on.

Next up was Jeep’s official account on Tuesday. As you can tell by the bio, it looks like the same hackers tapped into this account claiming that Jeep was sold to Cadillac after emptying out their pockets. They continued with more offensive tweets about employees and comments regarding the change to Cadillac.

Finally, on Thursday, some hackers took over Donald Trumps account. It’s hard not to laugh at this one. Donald Trump is known for not being shy with his own opinions on Twitter (as we saw in his post-election commentary), so seeing his account quote Lil Wayne is pretty entertaining. Although Twitter accounts should be more heavily protected and hacking into Donald’s account was wrong, this screenshot is just priceless. This tweet also garnered some free publicity to the account by having it be retweeted over 1,000 times before it was taken down.

While these hacks were relatively harmless since most of us on Twitter are familiar with internet crazes and rumors so these weren’t taken seriously but instead seen as entertainment, one can only think about what Twitter is going to do about all of this. Three major accounts hacked in one week by what could possibly be the same group of people leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Our Twitter accounts safe or up for grabs now? How is Twitter going to crack down on their account safety? And lastly, which brand or public icon is next up?