14 DAY TRIAL // Teen idol Selena Gomez just became the latest celebrity to have their social media accounts hijacked and misused, after a hacker posted defamatory messages from her Facebook and Twitter profiles.
A hacker calling himself "PkinJ0r" took credit for the compromise in a video posted on YouTube. He claims to have done it on a challenge and just to show Facebook's poor security.
The hacker claims not to have made any changes to the account, but nevertheless, Ms. Gomez's wall got filled by vulgar status updates posted on her behalf. One of them read "Oh yeh, JUSTIN BIEBER SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!"
According to TMZ, the young actress' reps quickly regained control of the profile and it seems that her Twitter account was also affected.
"Sorry everyone. My Facebook Page and Twitter account has been hacked and we are cleaning it up," Ms. Gomez later posted.
It's unclear at this time if the Facebook and Twitter incidents are related and the methods used to hack into the accounts remain unknown.
It could have been a variety of things, from insecure passwords to phishing and even hacking of a computer used to access them.
At the beginning of last month, German authorities arrested two young men suspected of infecting the computers of over 50 celebrities with malware, which led to the premature leaking of songs and the stealing of other sensitive information.
A lot of celebrities had their email, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or YouTube accounts hacked in the past, some of them even multiple times.
Other young actresses that were previously targeted by hackers include Hannah Montana's Miley Cyrus and Kick-Ass star Chloë Moretz, whose Facebook account was hijacked after her computer got stolen.
Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose, rapper Kanye West, pop diva Britney Spears, TV host Kirstie Allsopp, Ja Rule, Dorion Standberry and many others also had their online accounts hijacked.