Celebrity Twitter hackers target Britney's four-foot vagina

By Davey Winder
Tuesday, 06 January 2009 17:01

Home IT

Celebrity Twitter users post something interesting, shock horror! Well, not quite. Hackers who compromised their accounts have posted a variety of messages on their behalf, ranging from the amusing to the offensive. Still, it makes a change from boring I guess.

Twitter attracts celebrities these days like the proverbial brown stuff attracts flies. The likes of Britney and Obama have made high profile appearances, although Obama has gone strangely quiet since winning the election as well as the vote for tech president.

Some, such as star of Black adder and QI as well as renowned Brit wit and author, Stephen Fry, have found themselves stung by Twitter phishing scams this week. It seems the appeal of a free Apple console experience, sorry I mean iPhone, might have been too much for the gadget addict to resist.

Now, in what must go down as the worse possible start to the new year, Twitter finds itself making the celebrity news columns again and for all the wrong reasons. This time someone managed to compromise a number of celebrity accounts.

It seems that hackers managed to get hold of the tools that are used by the Twitter technical support team to get locked-out members back into the system. The details were briefly posted to a hacker forum called Digital Gangster, just long enough for a number of hackers to go and cause havoc for the rich and famous.

The fact that different people appear to have left different messages for different celebs means that it is something of a smorgasbord of a hack as a result. Some of the messages, purporting to come from the celebrities themselves, are spamming nature.

Barack Obama, in his first posting since the election was won, apparently wants you to take part in an online survey and is offering the chance of USD $500 worth of fuel as an incentive.

Others are either amusing or offensive depending upon your sense of humour and levels of political correctness. Take Fox News with a breaking news message that outspoken Republican show host "Bill O Riley is gay" for example.

What was CNN anchor Rick Sanchez likely to be late for work? Where did the Facebook Twitter account suggest users go? And what on earth has this got to do with Britney Spear's four foot vagina?

Find out, along with the Twitter and security industry response, on page 2.