Famous Tweeting Twitterers become hacker targets

One would think celebrities lead fun, interesting and robust lives filled with exciting events, parties, and lots of things to do. In this particular case, however, the fun may have run out as hackers broadcast defaming messages, making Twitter's Tweeting untwustworthy.


Twitter is a social networking site allowing users to broadcast their life – a process called “Tweeting.” Each move broadcast utilizes a 140-character message that can be sent via a mobile device or the website interface.

In fact, the whole concept behind Twitter is just talking about yourself and broadcasting your life's every move. Therefore it’s not at all surprising that politicians and celebs feel the need to infiltrate the site, broadcasting their every move. This unfortunately also leaves them open to attack.

Tweeting has proven one thing, however, and that's just how boring a celeb's life can be. That changed yesterday, however, when a hacker decided to take control of some celebrity accounts and post obscenities, defaming their character in the process.

Some popular celebrity Tweeters are Stephen Fry, Britney Spears, Dave Matthews, Andy Murray, Shaq, Barrack Obama, Lance Armstrong and MC Hammer.

This weekend Twitter reported a password stealing/phishing scam on the web. Today, those following celebrity Twitterers might have noticed a few oddities. Britney Spears’ Twitter account was tweeting about her lady business, and the blog of CNN anchor Rick Sanchez displayed the tweet “I am high on crack right now might not be coming into work today”.

A message sent by hackers on Britney Spears' account.

Twitter posted on their official blog that the website was hacked and that the celebrity blogs of Rick Sanchez, Britney Spears and 31 other Twitter users had been affected by an actual person and not a phishing scam.

The accounts were compromised by someone who hacked into some of the tools utilized by the Twitter support team. Twitter is taking the security breach very seriously, and has removed the support tools from the Internet. The site claims it will go back to normal operation when its sure that everything is both safe and secure.