Taylor Swift’s Twitter and Instagram accounts were reportedly hacked Tuesday afternoon by a group that might be affiliate with Islamic State terrorists, but were quickly recovered within 15 minutes of the hack.
The hacker posted a false tweet to Ms. Swift’s 51 million followers urging them to follow another user claiming to be the leader of the hacking group “Lizard Sqaud,” Time reported.
Ms. Swift took to her Tumblr page to confirm the hack.
“My Twitter got hacked but don’t worry, Twitter is deleting the hacker tweets and locking my account until they can figure out how this happened and get me new passwords,” she wrote, adding, “Never a dull moment.”
The “Lizard Squad” has been largely known as a group of gaming hackers, but recently the group claimed responsibility for defacing the Malaysia Airline website, posting a picture of a tuxedo-wearing lizard with the caption “Hacked by Lizard Squad – Official Cyber Caliphate.”
It is unclear whether or not the group is connected to the Islamic State. On Monday the group claimed responsibility for attacks on several social media services including Facebook, Instagram, Tinder and HipChat.
In August the group tweeted that there were explosives on board an American Airlines flight carrying Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley. The Tweet prompted an emergency landing in Phoenix.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.