14 DAY TRIAL // Hackers have managed to break into Lady Gaga's website and leaked information about its registered users, prompting the pop star's record label to contact the police.
The security breach occurred on June 27 and involved the official websites of several Universal Music artists and bands. However, the hackers, who call themselves Swagger Security or SwagSec, only leaked the Gaga information last week.
SwagSec is a new group that targets artists and the music industry. Its members have so far hacked the websites of Amy Winehouse, Lauren Pritchard, Justin Bieber and the Klaxons.
In each of the cases, the hackers leaked information contained in the databases including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, and even plaintext passwords.
Universal Music, owner of the web properties hacked by SwagSec confirmed the attack against Lady Gaga's fan site, but pointed out that no passwords were exposed.
"The hackers took a content database dump from www.ladygaga.co.uk and a section of email, first name and last name records were accessed. There were no passwords or financial information taken," the company said.
"We take this very seriously and have put in place additional measures to protect personally identifiable information. All those affected have been advised," it added.
Even the artist herself was affected by the incident. "She’s upset and hopes police get to the bottom of how this was allowed to happen," a source told the Daily Mail.
SwagSec did more than hack Gaga's website and expose her fans. The group accused the artist of being homophobic and threatened to kill her. The artist was recently criticized for exploiting her gay fans, an accusation which she dismissed as ridiculous.
SwagSec previously claimed to have hacked the websites of several artists and bands. User data has been leaked from all of them so far except that of Def Jam, so this might be SwagSec's next leak.