Taylor Swift became the latest star to have their social media accounts hacked on Tuesday. Swift, whose account is the fourth largest on Twitter, appeared to be asking her 51.4 million followers to follow @lizzard and @veriuser.
Our queen @taylorswift13 has been hacked for real?! pic.twitter.com/c5OobBblcv
— Swift Indonesia (@SwiftIndonesia_) January 27, 2015
@Lizzard’s account, now suspeneded, describes him or her as the leader of Lizard Squad, a group of hackers who have claimed responsibility for a wide variety of attacks on websites, including North Korea’s internet service and the Xbox Live and PlayStation Network on Christmas day.They were suspected to have been responsible for an outage on Facebook and Instagram on Monday, but Facebook denied this, citing internal issues.
@veriuser tweeted a screengrab proving that he had access to Swift’s account. Many Swift fans then requested that he follow them back from her account.
The tweets from Swift’s account were deleted 15 minutes after they were posted. Swift’s Instagram feed was also hacked, with her 20 million followers receiving images including a man squatting on a toilet, with messages inviting them to follow hackers’ accounts. The pictures were deleted a few minutes after being posted.
Your Instagram has also been hacked to @taylorswift13 pic.twitter.com/Vxs0ceWgo6
— Swift Indonesia (@SwiftIndonesia_) January 27, 2015
Before @lizzard was suspended, he or she also threatened to post nude images of Swift in exchange for three bitcoins, equivalent to $788.
Taylor Swift's hacker says they will post nudes of the singer in exchange for Bitcoin: http://t.co/FFg3Ln8DgX pic.twitter.com/zrAy9cXotr
— Motherboard (@motherboard) January 27, 2015
Swift responded to the hack on her personal tumblr page. Under the heading “well, now I’m awake,” the singer wrote: “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. Never a dull moment.”
She then tweeted “Cause the hackers gonna hack, hack, hack, hack, hack...” a reference to her hit Shake it Off, and jeered at the hackers’ claims to have nude pictures, saying “Psssh you’d love that wouldn’t you! Have fun photoshopping cause you got NOTHING.”
PS any hackers saying they have 'nudes'? Psssh you'd love that wouldn't you! Have fun photoshopping cause you got NOTHING.
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) January 27, 2015
Fans reacted to the hack with concern, though some greeted the news with more levity.
Can't believe it took someone this long to figure out Taylor Swift's password for everything is CatLady1989.
— Molly Knight (@molly_knight) January 27, 2015
