The New York Post says racist and sexist posts came from rogue employee (updated)

Fast Company isn't the only news outlet to suffer a recent, high-profile security breach. As CNBC reports, The New York Post has confirmed a rogue employee was behind racist and sexist posts on the newspaper's website and Twitter account. The perpetrator lashed out at various targets as part of the "unauthorized conduct," including New York City Mayor Eric Adams and House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In its initial statement, the The Post claimed it had been hacked and was "investigating the cause." It's not clear if the employee took any sensitive data. The company is taking "appropriate action" against the worker.

This isn't the first breach targeting The Post this year. In February, News Corp revealed that hackers compromised email accounts and documents for The Post and Wall Street Journal employees, including some journalists. Mandiant, a security firm working for the media giant, believed China was conducting an intelligence gathering operation.

The defacement comes just weeks after Fast Company fell victim to hacks that let the culprit send racist notifications to Apple News users. The publication went so far as to shut down its entire website while it addressed the incident. The hacker claimed to have exploited weak password security in WordPress that let them steal employee login info, password hashes and draft articles.

The two incidents are clearly different. However, they illustrate the potential dangers of site violations like this. On top of the risks to data, they provide easy ways to spread toxic and partisan messages. It won't be surprising if there are similar campaigns in the near future, especially with the US midterm elections just weeks away.

Update 10/27 2PM ET: This story originally reported that The Post had been hacked, but has been revised after the paper revealed that an employee was behind the unauthorized posts.