Tesla Website, Elon Musk's Twitter Defaced By Hackers

Even the smartest, most innovative companies fall victim to hackers once in a while, as evidenced by the few hours of difficulty Tesla Motors experienced on their website and Twitter account. Starting sometime between 4:00 and 5:00pm ET on Saturday, hackers took control of the company's official home page, Twitter account, and even founder Elon Musk's Twitter account for a brief time. The profile name on the social networking site's page was changed to #RIPPRGANG during the time control was lost, with tweets promising a free car to anyone who called a certain phone number.

To anyone familiar with Twitter, or even the internet, really, who visited either web page during the few hours they were affected, it should have been plainly obvious this was just some simple pranksters trying to be funny. The first tweet from the hackers stated the account was no longer under Tesla's control, while shoutouts to certain Twitter users followed. Shortly after this began, similar tweets began appearing on Elon Musk's account, making the same claims about giving away free cars.

One such user going by the handle @rootworx turned out to be the owner of the phone number that was posted, but that person tweeted they had no free cars to give away and that they weren't involved in the hack.

As for Tesla's website, it was replaced with several crude images, a bright orange background, along with a claim of "Hacked by Autismsquad." Tesla's IT department was quickly on the case, as the site was taken down and reappeared several times within the first 30 minutes.

A little over an hour after the whole fiasco began, Tesla's website and both Twitter accounts were back under the owner's control and everything restored. As of now no individuals or groups have claimed responsibility for the immature attacks, aside from the comment on the hacked home page.

VIA TechCrunch