Hackers breached Fast Company magazine’s internal systems on Tuesday evening, defacing the company’s main news site and sending racist push notifications through Apple News to iPhone users.
The two-sentence push notifications were attributed to Fast Company and contained the word and no graphic language, prompting shocked users to post screenshots on Twitter.
While breaches at media companies are not unheard of, the notification was one of the biggest breaches of Apple’s “walled garden” in recent memory. There was nothing to indicate that user security was compromised beyond the annoying wording.
“Fast Company’s Apple News account was hacked Tuesday evening. Two obscene and racist push notifications were sent one minute apart,” the magazine said via email. “The messages are vile and out of line with Fast Company content. We are investigating the situation and have suspended the feed and closed FastCompany.com until we are sure the situation has been resolved.”
An Apple spokesperson pointed to an Apple News tweet that read: “Fast Company sent out an incredibly offensive alert, which has been hacked. Apple News has disabled its feed.”
Fast Company sent out an incredibly offensive alert, which has been hacked. Apple News has disabled its channel.
— Apple News (@AppleNews) September 28, 2022
Although the magazine’s site was defaced, an article that was labeled as sponsored content gave the hackers’ description of how the absence occurred.
That account said the group had broken into the company’s WordPress program and found keys to features, including Apple News’ programming interface.