Actu
Sophos: Twitter attack, Miley Cyrus latest celebrity to fall foul of the hackers
February 2009 by Marc Jacob
Sophos is again calling on Twitter to enforce the use of strong passwords by its members following reports that another celebrity account has been hacked. This time the victim is Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus, daughter of ’Achy breaky heart’ legend Billy Ray Cyrus.
Last year Cyrus was the subject of another cybercrime attack when a hacker broke into her email and posted candid photographs of the star on the internet. In this latest incident, the fraudsters peppered her Twitter page with a number of poorly-spelt offensive messages. Twitter has responded quickly to the defacement and shut down Cyrus’s page.
"This is just the latest hacking incident to happen on Twitter and chances are it’s not going to be the last," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "Cybercriminals are only ever one step behind the latest computer craze and as tweeting has been growing in popularity, the hackers have been quick to realise the potential in hacking these accounts. It appears that Miley didn’t learn the lesson last year and hasn’t been taking enough care over her password security - to avoid the same fate, other users should make sure they choose strong passwords that can’t be easily cracked, and Twitter itself should play a key part in enforcing this."
Sophos recommends that all computer users ensure that their security defences are up to date and patched against the latest hacking, spam and malware threats.
