WA’s official Instagram account was hacked last night, sent spam messages to The Bachelor’s Matt Johnson

WA was hacked last night — well, the State’s official Instagram page, at least.

Followers of the Tourism WA Instagram account, @westernaustralia, noticed some peculiar posting behaviour last night, after the account started sharing strange images and sending spam messages to users.

One of the people to receive an alarming “copyright infringement” message from the official page, that boasts over 530,000 followers, was none other than the Bachelor’s Matt ‘Matty J’ Johnson.

Johnson took to his own Instagram account last night to alert his more than 260,000 fans to the hacking, writing “someone’s getting fired”.

“@westernaustralia... I thought you were smarter than that!,” he wrote.

The Sydney-based reality star also shared an image of the messages he received from the Western Australia account, that makes it appear that the tourism body are accusing him of a copyright violation.

“Hello dear Instagram user,” the post begins.

“If you do not object to the copyright on your account within 24 hours, your account will be permanently deleted, you can go to the appeal form by clicking the link below.”

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Tourism Western Australia confirmed the hacking, with a media spokeswoman saying they were able to work with the social media platform overnight to regain control “in less than 12 hours”.

“We contacted our stakeholders through various channels and alerted them of the breach and warned them to be wary of any messages and content on the account while we resolved the issue,” the spokeswoman said.

“We are aware some of our followers may have received a message overnight about copyright infringement...we urge anyone who has received a message to delete it immediately, and to not click on any links.”

Facebook — who own Instagram — have assured the tourism body that the data of their followers was “not compromised in any way”.