Chrysler Disables Jeep Twitter Account After Hack

Chrysler Group LLC, the U.S. automaker controlled by Fiat SpA, temporarily disabled its Twitter Inc. account for Jeep after hackers replaced the brand’s logo with Cadillac’s and posted bogus statements.

The company is working to restore the account after learning of the development about 1:30 p.m. New York time, Eileen Wunderlich, a spokeswoman for Auburn Hills, Michigan- based Chrysler, said in an interview today. Chrysler doesn’t know who hacked the account, she said.

“We’re aware of the issue, and we’re working on it now,” Wunderlich said by telephone.

Jeep’s Twitter issue follows a report by the Associated Press that Burger King Worldwide Inc.’s account was accessed yesterday by hackers who posted racial epithets and replaced its logo with that of McDonald’s Corp. Twitter, the microblogging site with more than 200 million active users, said this month it detected unauthorized attempts to hack into its systems and that attackers may have obtained access to information for about 250,000 people.

The false Jeep posts included one saying the brand was sold to Detroit-based General Motors Co.’s Cadillac. That hasn’t happened, David Caldwell, a GM spokesman, said in an e-mail.

“This is just Twitter mischief,” Caldwell said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles at aohnsman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jamie Butters at jbutters@bloomberg.net