Apple News readers who subscribe to updates from the business magazine Fast Company received racist and lewd push notifications after a hacker infiltrated the publication.
The breach occurred around 8:17 p.m. Tuesday when subscribers received two alerts that read, “N*****S TOUNGE MY ANUS. THRAX WAS HERE,” according to screenshots on social media.
The hacker wrote in a post on the magazine’s website that they were able to breach the publication thanks to a “ridiculously easy” default password used across the company.
“What an absolute disgrace of a news source,” the hacker said, writing in the since-deleted post that the password used the word “pizza,” according to The Desk.
Fast Company’s website was subsequently taken down and remained offline Wednesday morning. It would not be reinstated until the company was “certain the situation was resolved,” it tweeted Tuesday.
In a widely published statement, the company said the “messages are vile and are not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company,” and apologized to anyone who “saw it before it was taken down.”
The company also said that an “apparently related hack” on Sunday resulted in similar language appearing on the site.
Apple News addressed the issue around an hour after the push alerts were sent, calling the messages “incredibly offensive.”
“Apple News has disabled their channel,” the company wrote on Twitter.
Fast Company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.