Hackers Deface Amy Winehouse's Website

A group of hackers called Swagger Security has broken into the website of English singer Amy Winehouse and  posted an offensive message on its homepage.

The group made references to Anonymous' AntiSec campaign by writing "Winehouse = no swag, AntiSec = no swag, we swag" and called the troubled artist a racist white devil.

The hateful message is quite lengthy and mentions the hackers' plans to take back the Internet, whatever that means. The modified page also included the picture of American rapper Lil' B.

Amywinehouse.com is currently redirecting visitors to the artist's official Facebook page. The webmasters are probably trying to identify the hole exploited by SwagSec and patch it.

The English singer might have become a target after recently generating negative news headlines with the decision to cancel her European tour.

The announcement came after the artist was booed off the stage in Belgrade earlier this month because she was allegedly too drunk to perform.

"We have to be grateful, of course, that the attack appears to have been more akin to mindless graffiti, than an attempt to plant malware on a popular singer's internet site," says Graham Cluley, security researcher at antivirus vendor Sophos.

In the past there have been cases of hackers using hijacked celebrity accounts for malicious purposes. Just this week, Simon Pegg's Twitter account was hacked and used to distribute a dangerous banking trojan.

Many celebrities have been attacked in the past in similar ways. Artists like Kanye West, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus even became regular targets.

Past incidents suggest that there is a clear connection between controversy and hacking. Hackers prefer to target high-profile individuals who stir up controversy through their actions in order to attach themselves to the story or get a stronger reaction from the public. Some celebrities are even known to have used hackers as scapegoats after they said or did things that backfired.