The Twitter accounts of U.S. president-elect Barack Obama, vocaliser Britney Spears and another striking figures were hacked on Monday.

Twitter originator Biz Stone, in a place on the authorised consort blog, said a amount of 33 Twitter accounts had been hacked including those of Obama, Spears and Rick Sanchez, a CNN broadcasting fix with tens of thousands of followers. As a result, imitation messages dispatched discover in their obloquy on the micro-blogging service.

Twitter is a social-networking journal place that allows users to beam position updates, or “tweets,” from radiophone phones, fast messaging services and Facebook in inferior than 140 characters.

“We directly locked downbound the accounts and investigated the issue,” Stone said: “These accounts were compromised by an individualist who hacked into whatever of the tools our hold aggroup uses to support grouping do things same modify the telecommunicate come related with their Twitter account.”

The communication from the imitation Obama solicited recipients to verify a analyse and get 500 dollars worth of pedal patch the CNN fix purportedly told mass that he was “high on crack” and would belike not be reaching into impact on Monday.

Twitter was also the direct of a phishing move over the weekend in which scamsters attempted to obtain passwords and another individualized aggregation from Twitter users. Stone said Monday’s hacking incident was unconnected to the phishing scam.

The attacks are the prototypal famous section issues with Twitter, which has grown as a favourite ethnic networking place during the terminal year.

Launched in August 2006, it has been embraced by a sort of celebrities including Obama, who has more than 150,000 followers, and four-time NBA endorse Shaquille O’Neal of the constellation Suns.

(Agencies)