Many Apple News users on Tuesday received a push notification containing racist and obscene language, the result of a hack.
The offensive post came in a push alert around 8:18 p.m. Eastern Time from the account of business news magazine Fast Company, adding that “Thrax was here.” It was unclear exactly who Thrax was, or how many Apple AAPLs,
users to whom the alert was sent, but it seems to be generalized.
A similar message appeared on Fast Company’s website, along with a claim from the hackers about how they were able to access the site’s publishing tools. The posts were removed from the page, and Fast Company took its site entirely offline as a precaution, where, at midnight Eastern Time, users saw only a “404 Not Found” error message.
“Fast Company’s Apple News account was hacked on Tuesday night,” the company said. in a tweet. “Two obscene and racist push notifications were sent approximately one minute apart. The messages are despicable and inconsistent with Fast Company’s content and philosophy. We are investigating the situation and have suspended power and shutdown from http://FastCompany.com until we are sure the situation has been resolved.
“To clarify: Fast Company’s Content Management System (CMS) was hacked Tuesday night, which impacted our Apple News alerts,” Fast Company added later.
When asked for comment on Tuesday evening, Apple referred to a an Apple News tweet which said that he had deactivated the chain of Fast Company.