Either there’s a very easy to exploit security hole somewhere in Twitter’s infrastructure that’s being passed around the deep web or celebrities are terrible at picking hard to crack Twitter passwords.
Just weeks after Deadmau5 had his SoundCloud hacked and days after Katy Perry had her Twitter account taken over, hackers have allegedly penetrated Twitter accounts belonging to several musos, including Tame Impala.
As Pitchfork reports, the Australian psych-rockers had their Twitter account hijacked yesterday. The hackers initially plugged their personal social media accounts but soon began issuing bomb threats to JetBlue.
The hackers tagged the official Twitter account of the US-based budget airline and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, tweeting that they had several explosive devices and would blow up one of their planes “in 30 minutes”.
The tweets have since been deleted and the band have not issued a statement about the incident. Other musicians targeted in the attacks included Bon Iver, whose account was renamed ‘@ihavelegcancer’, and Keith Richards.
The hackers reportedly tweeted racial slurs at UK emcee Stormzy and made insensitive comments about the late Muhammad Ali. The tweets have since been deleted and both Bon Iver and Richards have issued statements.
Images via Pitchfork
The official Twitter account of musical comedy duo Tenacious D was also allegedly the target of a cyber-attack after a tweet was issued claiming Jack Black, one half of the duo, had died at the age of 46.
As BBC News reports, the account was later recovered and the claims of Black’s death rubbished in a subsequent tweet. Guitarist and Tenacious D affiliate John Konesky confirmed the tweets were the result of a hacking.
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Outside the music world, VentureBeat is reporting that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had his Twitter and Pinterest accounts hacked, with the hackers themselves claiming the intrusion was thanks to last month’s LinkedIn password dump.
Millions of LinkedIn user account details were leaked online last month and as we all know, many web users reuse the same passwords for different accounts, even though doing so is universally agreed upon to be a bad idea.
Whilst it hasn’t been confirmed, it’s possible passwords belonging to social media managers working for Tame Impala, Tenacious D, and other targeted musicians were revealed in the LinkedIn dump and made their way into the hands of hackers.
