The heads of celebrities and high-profile tech CEOs are metaphorically falling one by one in a series of Twitter hacks. Today, the account of Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe was under the control of an unknown hacker for several hours.
Unlike some of the previous hackers, this particular individual did not use the hack as a way of testing the online security of Iribe. Instead, they used the limited time they had by sending multiple tweets as pranks.
The hacker @Lid started off by letting the people know there is a new head of Oculus (himself), tweeting out to the 16,000 followers of Iribe that “we here @Oculus are very excited to announce our CEO. @Lid ! :)“.
The Twitter account of Brendan Iribe was compromised for several hours starting around 7 a.m. UK time. The hacker changed the account’s bio, describing himself as living in “Space” and being a huge fan of the cartoon Dexter’s Laboratory.
His many tweets showed that rather than causing actual damage, the impostor was more interested in embarrassing Oculus’ CEO and pretty much anyone else he could think off the top of his head.
After ridiculing TechCrunch, he seemingly revealed how he was able to get a hold of Iribe’s account:
“Imagine creating the coolest s*** to ever be introduced to gaming and technology but using the same pass for 4 years lol… silly mr CEO!”
Even though Iribe has reclaimed his account within hours, it wasn’t before the hacker tweeted that he is willing to give it back in exchange for a “free oculus rift so i watch porn the cool way.”
While crude, his demand doesn’t seem all that unreasonable. We don’t know if the ‘silly’ leader of Oculus gave in to the hacker’s demands, but he did regain control, didn’t he?
As hacks go, Iribe got off pretty unbruised. However, we can all learn a valuable lesson from this string of hacked accounts” account security is pretty important, and not just for social media. Keep your internet services (email and such) safe by logging in with different passwords.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai have also been the victims of recent hacks, showing that even the leaders of the tech world are vulnerable to weak security.
Image Source: India Today
