Ja Rule's Twitter Account Shows Signs of Hacking

It looks like the Twitter account of American rapper Ja Rule has fallen in the hands of hackers who are using it to post unflattering tweets, especially directed at 50 Cent.

The wave of questionable updates from Ja Rule (@Ruleyork), began around 7 hours ago and follow an exchange of tweets from yesterday between him and 50 Cent, in which the latter made fun of his jail sentence.

Ja Rule, by his real name Jeffrey Atkins, was sentenced to two years in prison yesterday on a gun possession charge to which he pleaded guilty.

He was arrested in the summer of 2007 after a semiautomatic pistol was found in his car when it was stopped for speeding.

Many of the messages posted on the rapper's Twitter account today are self-mocking or offensive to others.

"Damn i just realized ive only been on 2 major tours my entire career the rest i was just a second act :( and my movies all sucked :(," one of them states.

Another one reads "Hopefully people will forget about me when im in prison then i can change my name to 3pac."

"It's pretty clear that the real Ja Rule hasn't posted the scores of messages that have appeared and, at the time of writing, are still being posted," says Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at antivirus vendor Sophos.

"It's not just the content which indicates this; the messages also appear to be mainly being sent via the Twitter website rather than the Twitbird and Twitterific clients that Ja Rule normally uses," he explains.

There is also reason to believe that the account is used for more nefarious purposes than just defamation, with a link to a phishing page being posted on at least one occasion.

Giving the different styles of writing in the rogue tweets and the conflicting messages sent to @tyga or @50cent, it seems that more people might have access to the compromised account.

Ja Rule joins a long list of celebrities that had their Twitter presence hijacked - some of them like Britney Spears even multiple times - but it is worrying that after so many hours, the real owner hasn't regained control yet.