Barcelona's Twitter accounts were hacked after the team's 2-1 home win over Getafe in La Liga on Saturday.
A group calling itself “OurMine” took over Barcelona's accounts and posted a fake image hinting that the club had re-signed Brazilian forward Neymar.
It also posted a message noting that it was the second time it had hacked the club. It said that “the security level is better but still not the best," and added information on how it could be contacted to help “improve” the accounts' security.
The messages were later deleted and Barcelona eventually retook control of its accounts.
The group had also hacked Barcelona in 2017.
According to Engadget, Twitter confirmed the hacking, saying OurMine used a "third-party platform" to take control of the accounts.
Twitter locked down the affected accounts and was "working closely" with partners to restore them.
The International Olympic Committee said it was "investigating a potential breach" while FC Barcelona said it would run a "cybersecurity audit".
FC Barcelona will conduct a cybersecurity audit and will review all protocols and links with third party tools, in order to avoid such incidents and to guarantee the best service to our members and fans. We apologise for any inconvenience this situation may have caused. — FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) February 15, 2020
Some of the Twitter accounts belonging to the International Olympic Committee also were hacked by the same group on Saturday, with similar messages.
OurMine is believed to be based in Saudi Arabia and defaced social media accounts of the NFL, the 49ers, Cardinals, Bears, Bills, Broncos, Browns, Bucs, Cowboys, Colts, Chiefs, Eagles, Giants, Packers, Texans, and Vikings last month.
Most of the tweets posted by the OurMine hackers came from Khoros -- a web service used by digital marketing and PR departments to manage social media accounts, and is connected to a social media account as a third-party app.
OurMine has been involved in high-profile hacking in the past, including breaking into social media accounts of celebrities such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, to name a few.
The group has been active since 2016 and is believed to consist of several Saudi teenagers.
Earlier this month, the official Twitter accounts of Facebook and its messaging app Messenger were hacked by the same group of hackers
"Hi, we are O u r M i n e. Well, even Facebook is hackable but at least their security better than Twitter," posted the hackers.
In a statement here, a Facebook spokesperson said: "Some of our corporate social accounts were briefly hacked but we have secured and restored access".
(With inputs from Agencies)
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