Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had his Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest accounts briefly hacked according to various reports.
A hacker group called OurMine reportedly took over Zuckerberg’s Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest account on Sunday according to screengrabs of Tweets since removed from Zuckerberg’s accounts, which are rarely used by the Facebook CEO. (Update: See below, his Instagram was not accessed).
Ouch. Mark Zuckerberg's social media accounts have been hacked pic.twitter.com/KvVmXOIg5s
— Ben Hall (@Ben_Hall) June 5, 2016
Facebook CEO had reused ‘dadada’ as password in accounts
The root of this hack appears to stem from a breach of LinkedIn that occurred in 2012. Mr. Zuckerberg’s Twitter and Pinterest accounts were taken over in recent days because he reused a password: “dadada,”. The password had appeared last month in a database of more than 100 million usernames and passwords stolen in 2012 from LinkedIn.
Mr. Zuckerberg appears to have reused “dadada” to log into Twitter and Pinterest, allowing hackers to easily take over those accounts. It would seem that Zuckerberg used the same, simple password “dadada” across multiple accounts and continued to use that same password for the last four years.
In a statement, LinkedIn said that it had found and removed a fake profile that had been created of Mr. Zuckerberg.
“We were alerted of this takeover attempt and have taken action to remove the false profile on LinkedIn,” the statement read.
LinkedIn declined to address whether the hack was the result of a larger data breach in 2012 that compromised over 100 million accounts. LinkedIn has taken steps to invalidate passwords from older accounts, but the breach against Mr. Zuckerberg shows that some accounts, especially those that are old or dormant, remain at risk.
Do you remembers when Zuckerberg’s Facebook account hacked?
It is not the first time for Facebook CEO to experience hacked account on Social Media. Zuckerberg’s Facebook page hacked in August 2013 to prove security flaw.
When a Palestinian hacker sent warnings to Facebook about a security vulnerability that allows anyone to write on the wall of other users without authorization, but the company ignored him so he decided to hack the page of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and left a message on his wall.
The Palestinian researcher posted a message on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s page Facebook security team didn’t take his warnings about a security flaw seriously.
“First, sorry for breaking your privacy and post(ing) to your wall,” wrote Khalil Shreateh. “I (have) no other choice to make after all the reports I sent to (the) Facebook team.”
Update: Facebook confirmed that Zuckerberg’s Instagram account was not accessed, despite the attackers’ claims.