Britney Spears dead hacked

TwitPic exploit suspected in celeb fake obit assault

By John Leyden, 29th June 2009

Britney Spears's Twitter account has been hacked again - this time around the fake microblogging update falsely reported that the troubled warbler was dead.

The counterfeit update was posted via the TwitPic service, which re-posts "captions" associated with uploaded pictures to the associated Twitter account. Net security firm Sophos notes that TwitPic said on Monday that it had fixed a vulnerability involving the service's email posting functionality.

Hackers either exploited this vulnerability or brute-forced the four digit PIN associated with Britney's account to post the rogue message, Sophos reckons.

The image on Britney Spears's TwitPic account along with the associated fake post to Twitter have both been deleted. Britney's staff has posted a message reassuring followers that the pop star is alive and well that confirms the counterfeit message was the work of an unidentified hacker.

Social Media website Mashable adds that fake death notifications were also posted into the Twitter stream of other celebrities, including rapper P Diddy, as part of the same attack.

The latest hack on Britney's account is much less imaginative than previous efforts. Followers of the singer were informed that her vagina was four feet wide "with razor sharp teeth" back in January. The new year assault, as with the latest attack, was associated with a related attack on the accounts of other celebs. ®

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