Twitter Says Olympics, IOC Accounts Hacked
FILE PHOTO: The Twitter logo and binary cyber codes are seen in this illustration taken November 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
(Reuters) – Twitter (TWTR.N) said on Saturday that an official Twitter account of the Olympics and the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) media Twitter account had been hacked and temporarily locked.
The accounts were hacked through a third-party platform, a spokesperson for the social media platform said in an emailed statement, without giving further details.
“As soon as we were made aware of the issue, we locked the compromised accounts and are working closely with our partners to restore them,” the Twitter spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for the IOC separately said that the IOC was investigating the potential breach.
Twitter also said Spanish soccer club FC Barcelona’s account faced a similar incident on Saturday.
“FC Barcelona will conduct a cybersecurity audit and will review all protocols and links with third party tools, in order to avoid such incidents,” the soccer club said in a tweet after the hack.
Last month, the official Twitter accounts of several U.S. National Football League (NFL) teams, including the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs, were hacked a few days ahead of the Super Bowl.
Earlier this month, some of Facebook’s official Twitter accounts were briefly compromised.
Reporting by Akshay Balan in Bengaluru, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien
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