14 DAY TRIAL // The official Twitter account of alternative rock band Garbage has been hacked. The attacker has started posting adf.ly links in an attempt to make a profit and, judging by his messages, it appears to have worked.
“All you people saying I'm dumb. I've made over 19 dollars by spamming ad.fly links. I hack twitters and spam them great money,” the hacker wrote.
The links point to advertisement pages, which might explain the $19. However, as Sophos’s Graham Cluley points out, Garbage fans should refrain from clicking on them since they could lead to malware-serving websites.
Moments before this article was published, this tweet was posted from the account: Hey guys its Shirley [the band’s lead singer]... I don't know what to think so I'm just going to take it 1 step at a time. Contacting twitter now. Anyone fill me in?
Hopefully, this means that the band has regained access to the account. On the other hand, this incident once again highlights the importance of strong passwords.
I advise everyone to make sure that the passwords they set cannot be guessed easily, in order to prevent unfortunate situations.