NASA gets hacked, porn tweeted on official Twitter account
Seeing a pornographic content may be a warm and exciting welcome for a few, but definitely not when it is cited on an official site of a brand as big as NASA. Yes, NASA’s official Twitter handle for Kepler and K2 was hacked and the hacker left after replacing the profile photo with a woman’s pic, renamed the account name and also tweeted a photo of a woman’s rear end dressed only in lacy red underwear.
NASA’s Kepler and K2 official Twitter account (@NASAKepler) was hacked on early July 6, which was spotted by Carl Franzen and reported by Motherboard.
The official @NASAKepler Twitter account appears to be hacked. Showing up on homepage too :-O pic.twitter.com/ohPMiTEKYH
— Carl Franzen (@carlfranzen) July 6, 2016
The account was briefly compromised by some hacker, who managed to rename the account name from ‘NASA Kepler and K2’ to ‘r4die2oz’. Post that, he also changed the profile pic to a woman’s photo and later tweeted a pornographic image which featured the rear end of a woman dressed in lacy red, erotic lingerie. The tweet stated ‘waiting for ya: <3’ along with a link to a porn website localsex2.com. The hack was immediately notified by followers, and NASA later stepped into action and reset the same back to normal.
Our account was temporarily compromised. We're back in business, ready to tell you about new planet discoveries.
— NASA Kepler and K2 (@NASAKepler) July 6, 2016
Later, NASA tweeted out informing about the breach and that it was fixed. The tweet by Carl Franzen also mentioned that the homepage was showing the tweet too. The tweet has been deleted from the official account. NASA is presently investigating the attack and thanked all its fans and followers for flagging them about the incident.
Motherboard also reports that this is not the first time NASA was hacked on social media. In 2010, the @NASA_Astronauts account was breached and the hacker was selling televisions on it.
Popular Science reported followers on Twitter went gaga on the incident, tweeting out with funny quotes:
@NASAKepler was the last photo the newest planet discovered?
— Jesus Vega (@CosmicTropic) July 6, 2016
@NASAKepler Too bad, I thought we found a new heavenly body.
— Chris Pope (@Luckeytiger14) July 6, 2016
Well, hackers are presently known to be fighting an online battle with terrorists and placing porn (even gay porn) on their websites and Twitter accounts to fight terrorism. However, NASA’s website being hacked seems to be a bit off the track.