News Business Google CEO Sundar Pichai's Quora account hacked

Google CEO Sundar Pichai's Quora account hacked

New Delhi: Another week and reports of another high-profile hack targeting Google CEO Sundar Pichai are now doing therounds. According to reports, Pichai’s Quora account was targeted over the weekend by hacking group OurMine, which also claimed respo

Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google

New Delhi: Another week and reports of another high-profile hack targeting Google CEO Sundar Pichai are now doing therounds. According to reports, Pichai’s Quora account was targeted over the weekend by hacking group OurMine, which also claimed responsibility for hacking FaceBook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Twitter and Pinterest accounts earlier this month.

The reportedly three-man hacker group called OurMine posted several messages on Pichai's Quora account. Since the India-born Google CEO's page is linked to his Twitter account, the OurMine hacking team publicised the fake Quora posts by tweeting them on Pichai's Twitter account. The team announced the hack on its site on Monday, and said the Google CEO's "security was really weak."

Both Pichai's Quora and Twitter accounts have since been cleaned up, with no evidence remaining of a breach - however, a screenshot of his defaced Twitter profile was shared by OurMine.

The group said it was only testing the security of all celebrity accounts it hacked into. "We are just testing people security, we never change their passwords, we did it because there is other hackers can hack them and change everything," the group told The Next Web.

Earlier this month, OneMine hacked Twitter and Pinterest passwords of Zuckerberg. The hack had its origins in 2012's LinkedIn data breach that had over 6 million passwords stolen.

Hacked Quora and twitter posts of Sundar Pichai

It is likely that the leaked data included the ID and passwords of the Facebook CEO's LinkedIn account and that Zuckerberg used the same password for its other accounts as well. The password was "dadada" as per the hacking group.

OurMine Team even claimed to have gained access to the Facebook CEO's Instagram account. However, Facebook later claimed that Zuckerberg's Instagram account was untouched. "No Facebook systems or accounts were accessed," a Facebook spokesperson said.

The OurMine hacking group is eager to depict itself as a security firm, and advertises services on its site that scan websites, social media accounts, and companies for security vulnerabilities. Apart from FaceBook CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this month, the team claims to have successfully hacked Twitter co-founder Evan Williams' Twitter account, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's Twitter account, apart from Randi Zuckerberg and Channing Tatum.

 

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