Real Madrid’s official Twitter account was hacked with a post announcing the signing of rival Lionel Messi appearing on their feed.
The hacking group known as OurMine, was behind the attacks on the Spanish giant and posted hoax claims of player transfers.
The group, which has been behind a series of high-profile hacks recently, claimed that Messi, the former multiple world player of the year and Barcelona’s greatest ever player, had signed for Madrid.
The post on the Madrid official Twitter account also accompanied by a video of Messi scoring for Barcelona against Real Madrid said “Benvingut Messi! !Bienvenido Messi! Welcome Messi! Bienvenue Messi! #Messi”.
The tweet remained visible for over an hour before it disappeared from both the Spanish and English social media language feeds. The removable of the post was not quick enough to stop the post going viral with over 27,000 retweets coming in the first 45 minutes.
The hacking group followed up this tweet with a series of tweets claiming responsibility for the hack saying: “Internet security is s*** and we proved that”.
The hack on the current UEFA Champions League holders came just days after their fiercest rivals, FC Barcelona, had their social media accounts hacked with a post announcing the signing of Ángel Di María from Paris Saint-Germain.
The Catalan club quickly released a statement confirming the incident: "Our accounts have been hacked tonight. We're working to solve the problem as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience."
This was the second time that the club fell victim to hackers having previously had their social media platforms compromised in 2014 by a group claiming to be the Syrian Electronic Army.
It is difficult to ascertain what exactly is the aim of OurMine, is the group using these hacks to simply promote their group, or is there a more serious motive lurking in the dark that is yet to materialize?
