Lessons from Pfizer Facebook hack
July 20, 2011 – 12:31 pm by Chris
That mischievous splinter sect of Anonymous, The Script Kiddies, has been at it again; first they made a name for themselves by hacking Fox News’ Twitter feed and sending out reports of President Obama’s death. Now the group has turned its sights to Big Pharma, hacking Pfizer’s Facebook page (the screen grab is courtesy of the blog The Hawthorne Effect).
The Hawthorne Effect picked up an exclusive interview The Script Kiddies did with Student Activist Diary about the hack. The respondent on behalf of the group said Pfizer was attacked because it is “A Corrupt Corporate American Company guilty of cutting corners and killing people:”
“They are guilty of killing people through harmful drugs and clinical tests. For example, their drug Trovan killed 11 Nigerians out of 200 given the drug. We plan to achieve awareness mostly; awareness that the security online is an allusion and also that Pfizer’s crimes are intolerable and we will not deal with them. We will stand up and say, hey, this isn’t right. We will take a stand. Some say that our methods are extreme, but they have to be to achieve our goals. Pfizer is a corrupt giant, so we attacked them. Simple as that.”
Ray Kerins, VP, external affairs and worldwide communications, Pfizer, says the company has been in direct contact with Facebook since the hack was detected and the page taken down. “We want to see exactly how this happened and ensure that it never happens again,” he stated.
The company is trying to get the Facebook page back up as quickly as possible, but needs answers from people outside Pfizer first, Mr. Kerins says. “When we do find out what happened, we will share the learnings with other [pharma] companies,” he says. “I don’t want this to happen to any other companies.”
Despite the attack, Pfizer will not abandon Facebook and other social media channels, Mr. Kerins says. “We’re taking this as a lesson learned,” he says. “We understand the benefits social channels do bring, and we’re committed to using them.”
Bruce Grant, senior VP, business strategy, at Digitas Health, points out that the The Script Kiddies did not have a reasoned grievance against Pfizer, but were just repeating things they had found in the media. Pfizer was a “villain of opportunity,” he says, and the hack was not something that Pfizer could have prevented, since the security issues were all on Facebook’s end.
Ultimately, the incident is a “welcome and useful wakeup call,” and shows pharma companies that they can’t walk away from Facebook. Mr. Grant points out that the branded pages Facebook set up will not disappear, and after Aug. 15, Facebook will require companies to allow comment on the pages (the exception is pages for branded pharmaceutical products).
“It seems that Facebook is pretty determined that if people go to a Facebook page, they will have a Facebook experience,” Mr. Grant says.
Overall, the pharma industry’s biggest concern with Facebook and other social media channels remains the open airing of legitimate grievances about things such as drug side effects, rather than hacking, Mr. Grant says.
“Our advice is you don’t have a choice as to whether you have a page – your choice is whether you want to maintain appropriate control over the conversation,” he says.
(Edit: Ed Silverman at Pharmalot adds his own twist to the story.)
Tags: Facebook, hacking, hacktivists, Pfizer, Social media in pharma
