City of Peterborough’s social media account on X hacked, taken over

The City of Peterborough says its account on X (formerly Twitter) was hacked and taken over for some time on Sunday.

On Monday morning, the city says its X account @CityPtbo was hacked on Sunday and had been renamed @JupiterExhanqe.

According to Brendan Wedley, the city’s director of strategic communications and service, the hacker did not make any posts on the account under @CityPtbo.

“After they changed the account name, they have started posting on that account but do not appear to be trying to impersonate the City of Peterborough,” he told Global News. “Rather, they’re using the account for their own activities.”

Wedley says the city reacquired its @CityPtbo account name after the hacker changed the name of the original account.

However, all of the city’s previous posts and followers were gone from the account.

“When they changed the name, our account name @CityPtbo became available again,” Wedley said. “We’ve re-acquired that name, but we’re starting from scratch. We’ve contacted X/Twitter to see if they will restore our followers and account history.”

Wedley says no personal information was shared on the social media account.

The city’s other social media accounts have not been affected, he said.

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