UW-Madison’s official Twitter account is the latest account to fall victim to hackers, as several obscenity-riddled tweets were issued from the university’s account early this morning.
“[The hack] looks like it happened about 6:30 this morning central time,” UW-Madison spokesperson Meredith McGlone said. “We noticed it pretty quickly and we reached out to Twitter. We are working with them to resolve it.”
One tweet sent out by the university Twitter mentioned a specific Twitter user: “Why is this @idfc moron hacking everyone can you fuck off.”
In a conversation with the mentioned Twitter user, the user denied hacking the university’s Twitter, saying he was unsure of why he was mentioned and suggesting it was “maybe one of my friends or something.”
“I am friends with a lot of ‘hackers’ so they might have done it and shouted me out as a joke to get my Twitter taken down or something,” the mentioned user said. “I don’t mind though. It was pretty funny.”
The user's account has been suspended by Twitter.
UW-Madison Police have acknowledged the hack in a tweet.
"Admins at @UWMadison are aware that their Twitter account has been compromised. Not to fear—it will be back to its awesome self soon," UW-Madison police tweeted.
After contacting Twitter support and removing the tweets around 9:30 this morning, UW-Madison released a statement claiming the account has been completely restored. The source of the hack is still unknown, according to the university.
“A specific cause has not yet been identified, but University Communications will undertake a review of its social media account security in the wake of the disruption,” the statement said. “The situation is a reminder to all social media users to employ strong passwords, two-factor authentication and a periodic review of access and third-party apps.”
UPDATED May, 17 2017 10:30 a.m:. This story was updated to add additional information about UW-Madison's response to the issue.
