I want to add that this was completely preventable, anyone could have done it, and that anyone just ended up being me, the hacker who uses the handle thrax, told Vice's Motherboard.
It wasn't a sophisticated cyber attack from a foreign state, and it didn't require specialist skills. A hacker breached Fast Company's content management system Tuesday and gained the ability to send two push notifications through Apple News that contained a racial slur and explicit language. The news company said in a tweet Wednesday that the alerts are vile and are not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company, and that it has shut down its website temporarily.
Fast Company's website displayed a statement about the hack at the time of publication. The incident came after an apparently related event occurred Sunday afternoon on FastCompany.com, when an unknown actor or actors posted similar language on the site's home page and other pages, Fast Company said in the statement.
Apple News disabled Fast Company's channel Tuesday evening after the push alerts, it said in a tweet. FOX Business reached out to Apple for comment on the hacker's remarks.
The push alerts could have been a hoax threat-to life event, a hoax nuclear fallout, the hoax death of President Biden, a scam, or anything else that could have the potential to shift markets, according to Motherboard. I embarrass Fast Company instead. Fast Company regrets that such abhorrent language appeared on our platforms and in Apple News, apologizing to those who saw it.
The statement on its website states that the company is working with a cybersecurity firm to investigate the situation.