Social media accounts are protected only by a combination of username/email address and password.
Sufficient to most people that don't carry big names under their social media handles, but not apparently for Facebook that is the largest social media in the world.
The social giant had its Instagram and Twitter accounts hacked by a hacker group previously involved in hacking of accounts belonging to HBO, the New York Times, the NFL and a number of its football teams.
The hackers were said to have temporarily took over Facebook's accounts through a third-party platform, raising concerns about the security of the social networks.
OurMine, the group that is said to have also hacked the accounts of tech executives like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, posted:
And around the same time, the group also tweeted from Facebook Messenger's Twitter account with the same message:
A Twitter spokeswoman confirmed that both Facebook's
"As soon as we were made aware of the issue, we locked the compromised accounts and are working closely with our partners at Facebook to restore them," she said in a statement.
Both accounts returned to normal in less than 30 minutes.
OurMine also appeared to have successfully hijacked the official Facebook Instagram account, and posted some of the group's logo:
As well as on Messenger's Instagram account:
What should be noted here is that, OurMine claims were misleading.
Facebook or Twitter themselves weren't hacked. What the hacker group did, was logging in into Facebook's social media accounts, and posted some messages.
With both Facebook's and Messenger's official accounts on Instagram and Twitter hacked at the same time, it's suggested that Facebook may have used the same username/email and password combinations for the accounts.
Before Facebook managed to stop the hackers' access, the two sides were caught in a battle, where users on Twitter saw the hackers kept posting tweets while Facebook kept deleting them.
