Formula 1 has confirmed its official app was subjected to a “targeted attack” yesterday which led to fans receiving unexpected notifications containing the text “foo”.
A further message sent to users of the official Formula 1 app on Saturday read: “Hmmmm, I should check my security.. :)”In a statement F1 confirmed its systems had been compromised and it has begun an immediate review of its services.
“Formula 1 became aware of an incident where the F1 App Push Notification Service had been compromised,” it stated.
“We immediately took actions to suspend and secure the service and review the security procedures in place.”
F1 does not believe any of its users’ data was leaked in the hack.
“Our investigation confirms that this targeted attack was limited to the Push Notifications Service. We will continue to investigate, review and improve safety measures but, at this time, have no reason to believe that any customer data has been accessed during this incident.”
The official Formula 1 app has been downloaded by over five million users on the Google Play Store.
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Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
4th July 2021, 11:37
Foo
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
4th July 2021, 12:22
Fighters !
Broccoliface
4th July 2021, 11:38
Foo
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
6th July 2021, 11:37
Bar
Qeki (@qeki)
4th July 2021, 11:38
Oof
erikje
4th July 2021, 11:43
Well a responsible hacker in action. Just enough to stir things up but not doing any damage, apart from the it depts ego.
Chaitanya
4th July 2021, 11:57
Or someone within the company(currently employed or former) not too happy with treatment.
Aapje (@aapje)
4th July 2021, 12:06
Weird story. ‘foo’ is a common placeholder word used by programmers, just like ‘bar’ and ‘foobar’. You’d think that a hacker would post something more scandalous.
My bet is on an error in some software that automatically posts tweets, not a hacker.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
4th July 2021, 12:22
@aapje
I see your point but F1 said that it is targeted attack. We’ve seen before what you’ve talked about when “LastName” was displayed in the live TV when showing the gap between the drivers instead of their real last names.
RandomMallard (@)
4th July 2021, 12:40
@aapje I think this is likely suggestive of a less malicious attack. If that is indeed the source of ‘foo’ in this instance, I expect this may be a ‘white-hat’ hacker who is trying to find security exploits with a relatively harmless attack and notify F1 before anyone with a malicious intent does.
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
6th July 2021, 11:37
@randommallard It also feels a little bit like the hacker wasn’t sure if the hack would work.
@aapje as a programmer, it is indeed my default string to use when testing/checking something. Is this function even firing? Log “foo” to the console and see. Testing an array? `[“foo”, “bar”, “baz”]. Probably worth noting that hackers often are programmers; and many aren’t actually malicious. They do it for fun.
MattDS (@mattds)
4th July 2021, 16:24
If you thoroughly read the article, you’d see “foo” was not the only notification that was sent out.
GeeMac (@geemac)
4th July 2021, 12:56
The hackers missed a trick, “Bwoa” was surely what they should has said…
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
4th July 2021, 18:46
Ahah, yes, should’ve done it!
Gav
4th July 2021, 13:09
I was hoping they’d get in an improve the live timing
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
4th July 2021, 13:43
Hmmmm
Just a Fan
4th July 2021, 15:48
Foo……..
k smash
Julian Sark
4th July 2021, 15:59
May I suggest another 5s FIA penalty for that hacker?