On Monday afternoon, the Twitter feed of fast-food chain Burger King was hacked - apparently by the Anonymous group of hackers - and its page was defaced with messages which said that the account had been sold to Burger King's rival, McDonald's, "because the whopper flopped."

The hackers who hacked Burger King's Twitter feed changed @BurgerKing account name to "McDonald's" and added the Golden Arches' familiar logo to the page which has now been taken down. However, images of the defacement of the page by the hackers can still be seen on Web cache.

Along with re-branding the `Burger King' name with `McDonald's,' the hackers - who carried out the hack at 5.01pm GMT on Monday - also advised the viewers of the hacked Twitter feed to eat at McDonald's. In addition, the hackers also started retweeting comments from other users who had complained about Burger King.

The Hackers' tweet announcing the hack of Burger King's Twitter feed said: "We just got sold to McDonalds! Look for McDonalds in a hood near you @DFNCTSC" - the latter underscoring a reference to a Twitter user set up on the same day which hadn't tweeted.

Meanwhile, noting that Burger King's Twitter account has been suspended so that the fast-food chain can "re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings," a Burger king spokesman said: "We apologise to our followers who have been receiving erroneous tweets about other members of our industry and additional inappropriate topics."