14 DAY TRIAL // Celebrity media reports that Oscar-nominated actress Salma Hayek had her MobileMe e-mail account hacked into. The perpetrators published screenshots of the contained personal messages, revealing interesting aspects of her daily life.
The actress, highly acclaimed for her role as Frida Kahlo in the movie with the same name, a performance for which she received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, was targeted by the 4chan Anonymous group.
Members of this board, described by some as nothing more than Internet trolls with a questionable sense of humor, have reportedly successfully reset the password to Hayek's [email protected] by doing some simple background research. Apparently, all they needed was the date of her birthday, September 2, and the answer to her security question, which was the name of her best-known movie.
The screenshots taken by the "hackers" of the account inbox and messages show that Salma had an appointment for a Japanese face massage, that she was invited to America Ferreira's 25th birthday party, that she has designer clothes delivered at her home, or that she receives scanned copies of articles written about her.
Interesting facts about her relationship with her French billionaire husband, François-Henri Pinault, have also been disclosed. For example, the American Express credit card registered with the account and used to pay for her purchases from the iTunes store belongs to him. There is also a message from AMEX confirming that they have issued a new "Rewards Plus Gold Card" to her.
There has been no official statement from the actress' spokesperson regarding this incident, but the phone number supplied in a sent message has been confirmed to belong to her. Additionally, members of the 4chan board have used the same methods before to get access to other celebrity e-mail accounts, like Sarah Palin's. Paris Hilton also lost her account to hackers because of a weak answer to the security question.
"The public should take this as a warning to be very careful about what 'secret answers' they choose in case they need to ever reset their passwords. Too many people when they are asked 'What was your mother's maiden name?'or 'Tell us the name of your favourite pet,' choose to answer honestly with information that is a matter of public record, or can be found out by visiting their Facebook profile," Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at anti-virus vendor Sophos, advises.
