14 DAY TRIAL // Guns N' Roses fans looking forward to the band's upcoming concerts in Europe became worried after a fake message announcing that all upcoming appearances were canceled was posted from Axl Rose's hacked Twitter account.
"All upcoming Guns N' Roses dates are officially cancelled. Please contact your place of purchase for any refunds," the rogue announcement, which at the time of writing this article is still up, reads.
The GN'R frontman's Twitter account is followed by some 68,242 users and is added to 2,610 lists, despite the highly irregular activity on it.
Rose has 36 tweets so far since December 2009, when the account was created, with an average of 2 - 3 per month. The last one posted before the fake update dates from May 20.
According to Graham Cluley, senior technology advisor at antivirus vendor Sophos, an indication that something is wrong is that the bogus announcement was posted via Twitter's mobile website, while most of the others were via an iPhone application.
"A spokesman for the Guns N' Roses rock group has confirmed that lead singer Axl Rose's Twitter account has been hacked, and that their European tour is proceeding," the security experts notes.
It's still not clear how the actual compromise occurred. It's also curious that the rogue message is still up despite the band's staff knowing about it; especially since Twitter is known for handling such abuse in a speedy manner.
Of course, Axl is not the first celebrity to have their Twitter profile hijacked and their followers spammed or misled.
Britney Spears is probably the most prolific in this respect, as her account has been hacked for at least three times until now, and on one occasion her fans were told that she passed away.
Other similar incidents involved Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus, Lil' Kim, Ellen DeGeneres, Diddy, Bill O'Reilly, Rick Sanchez and even U.S. President Barack Obama.
