Big Mac hack attack on Burger King

WASHINGTON, USA: Burger King sustained a virtual Big Mac attack on Monday (18 February) when its Twitter account was hacked then redesigned with a bogus claim of a corporate takeover by McDonald's.

Its @BurgerKing account briefly sported the McDonald's golden arches logo. A curt statement on the feed said that Burger King "just got sold to McDonald's" with tweets promoting Chicago rapper Chief Keef appeared before Twitter feed was abruptly suspended.

In a statement to AFP, Burger King's director of global communications and culture Bryson Thornton said the feed would remain offline "until we are able to re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings."

"We apologise to our fans and followers who have been receiving erroneous tweets about other members of our industry and additional inappropriate topics," he added.

On its own Twitter feed, McDonald's said: "We empathise with our @BurgerKing counterparts. Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking."

Meanwhile, a Twitter spokesman told AFP via email: "We don't comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons."

It was unclear if Keef had any role in the incident. According to the AllHipHop.com music blog, the 17-year-old is currently serving a 60-day sentence in juvenile detention on a gun charge.

Source: AFP via I-Net Bridge