Someone Just Hijacked Taylor Swift's Twitter and Instagram Accounts [UPDATE: Swift Has Responded]
UPDATE: Taylor Swift has responded to the hacks in a post on her Tumblr page:
"Well, now I’m awake. My Twitter got hacked but don’t worry, Twitter is deleting the hacker tweets and locking my account until they can figure out how this happened and get me new passwords."
After regaining access to her Twitter account, Swift sent out this fireball:
ORIGINAL STORY:
Never a dull moment.
Taylor Swift’s Twitter account was broken into this afternoon, with her profile tweeting out to over 51 million fans that they should follow someone who claims to be the “leader” of Lizard Squad, the hacking group that’s ostensibly behind this attack. Swift has the fourth largest account on Twitter, making this one of the higher-profile breaches that have occurred on the network. Tweets sent by the hacker were deleted within about 15 minutes, as Swift or Twitter itself seemingly recovered the account.
Swift’s Instagram account was broken into shortly thereafter, with the account posting a photo imploring her fans to follow someone else associated with the Twitter hack. She has over 20 million followers on Instagram. That account also appeared to be recovered after a few minutes, deleting the offending photo.
The hackers also claimed to have stolen nude photos of Swift, which they would release for payment in Bitcoin.
Chances are good these intrusions are high-tech hacks. A number of major Twitter users have fallen victim to phishing attacks over the past few years, eventually leading Twitter — after much outcry — to implement two-factor security. And while Swift has more followers than those who were hacked in the past, the intrusion on her social media accounts seemingly did far less damage: the Associated Press' Twitter account was broken into back in 2013, leading to a tweet about explosions in the White House that moved markets, despite being quickly proven false.
(Twitter)
(Twitter)
(Twitter)
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