Burger King's Twitter feed hit by Big Mac hack attack

WASHINGTON - Agence France-Presse

This frame grab taken Monday, Feb. 18, 2013, shows what appears to be Burger King's Twitter account after it was apparently hacked. Starting just after noon Eastern time on Monday, the fast-foot company's Twitter picture was changed to a McDonald's logo, and the account tweeted that it had been sold to rival McDonald's. (AP Photo)

Burger King sustained a virtual Big Mac attack Monday when its Twitter account was hacked then redesigned with a bogus claim of a corporate takeover by McDonald's.

Its @BurgerKing account briefly sported the McDonald's golden arches logo, a curt statement that Burger King "just got sold to McDonald's" and tweets promoting Chicago rapper Chief Keef before it was abruptly suspended.

In a statement to AFP, Burger King's director of global communications and culture Bryson Thornton said the feed would remain offline "until we are able to re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings." "We apologize to our fans and followers who have been receiving erroneous tweets about other members of our industry and additional inappropriate topics," he added.

On its own Twitter feed, McDonald's said: "We empathize with our @BurgerKing counterparts. Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking." Meanwhile, a Twitter spokesman told AFP by email: "We don't comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons." It was unclear if Keef had any role in the incident. According to the AllHipHop.com music blog, the 17-year-old is currently serving a 60-day sentence in juvenile detention on a gun charge.