The Twitter accounts of both Bob Dylan and Sony Music Global have been hacked into, with both reporting the (obviously fake) news of Britney Spears’ demise.
Now, admittedly these tweets do look less-than-professional, with the phrase “dead by accident” not usually making it into official label statements about the untimely death of an artist. The choice of Bob Dylan as the Sony artist to publicly mourn the passing of Spears is very curious; imagining a link between Spears and Dylan is kinda like expecting a dog and a dolphin to effectively communicate with each other.
Sony jumped on the breach quickly, releasing the following statement: “Sony Music Entertainment’s Twitter account was compromised. This has been rectified. Sony Music apologizes to Britney Spears and her fans for any confusion.”
An online security company named OurMine later took credit for the hacks, and it seems this is part of their marketing plan: the anonymous group hacks the feeds of prominent companies, showcasing their vulnerabilities, and then offers them a company security audit for US$5,000. They have hacked the Twitter feeds of CEOs from Facebook, Spotify, Amazon and Google, and this week hacked the Twitter account for Marvel and Netflix – so it appears they are targeting the big fish.
It doesn’t seem like the best business model, but OurMine are certainly causing a stir. Wired ran a profile on them, with an anonymous spokesperson claiming, “We are not blackhat hackers, we are just a security group…we are just trying to tell people that nobody is safe.”
