Celebrities scramble to respond to Twitter attacks
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Kylie Jenner arrives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Benefit Gala, celebrating the opening of "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology" on Monday, May 2, 2016, in New York. (AP)
Kylie Jenner’s Twitter account was hacked over the weekend, as was Keith Richards', Mark Zuckerberg’s and Jack Black’s. In a message on Jenner’s Twitter, the hacker hinted there was a connection between the Twitter takeover and the recent hack of Katy Perry’s account tweeting “Miss u… @katyperry.”
Black's account, which is connected to his band Tenacious D, cleared up rumors after the hacker sent out a series of tweets implying the star had died.
"WE had our Twitter account hacked. We can assure you that Jack is ALIVE and WELL and that this was a sick 'prank,'" the band tweeted.
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Richards also responded strongly to negative messages sent out on his account.
"Earlier today Keith’s Twitter account was hacked along with other verified accounts," a tweet on Sunday explained. "The hateful tweets that were posted have been removed."
Meanwhile, Jenner was less fazed by the hack.
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"Mmmm, so my Twitter was hacked. I don't really care," she said in a Snapchat video. "I'm just letting them have fun."
Computer security news expert Graham Cluley posted a video claiming the hack could have been a lot worse.
“Well you may not care, but what about your 16 million followers on Twitter?” he said in the video. “Don’t you think you should care about them? Because if your account had been hacked Kylie, then potentially those users could have clicked on a link and gone somewhere malicious, maybe they could have had their password fished.”
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Longtime Hollywood PR guru Howard Bragman told FOX411 the hackings should inspire celebs to increase their cyber security.
“Hacking is a fact of life for celebrities and the rest of us,” Bragman said. “People need to use this as a teachable moment to up their personal level of security and their verifications.”
He said most celebrities recover from brief hacks like the ones Jenner, Perry and others faced in recent weeks.
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“Celebrities typically get beyond these hacks except in two circumstances: when they claim they were hacked but they really weren’t, and when truly damning information is released.”
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg’s LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter accounts were hacked. The hackers left a clue writing “Hacked by OurMine Team” on the Facebook creator’s Pinterest page.
Reports claim OurMine also tweeted — in a now deleted message — that Zuckerberg’s password was obtained from the LinkedIn data leak in 2012.
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“The belief is that he was using the same passwords for multiple websites, and his password was a dumb one anyway,” Cluley told FOX411. “From the sound of things, the hack was assisted by the recent release on the web of a huge database of old LinkedIn usernames and passwords that were stolen from the site a few years ago.”
Zuckerberg's team said he has since changed his passwords.
PR expert Ronn Torossian explained that celebrity hacks generally cause no harm to their brand.
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“Genuine hacks of celebrity social media accounts does not tarnish their brands,” he explained. “Unless a celebrity works in the CIA, no one expects them to have perfect security, as we all deal with security related issues.”
And President and CEO of InfoTech noted there are innumerable ways to hack.
“Just as there are endless methods for burglars to break into a house, there are endless methods for hackers to hack into your computer."
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Twitter did not comment on the celebrity hacks directly, but a spokesperson for the company said users should use strong passwords for the social media site.
"A number of other online services have seen millions of passwords stolen in the past several weeks," a Twitter spokesperson told FoxNews.com, via email. "We recommend people use a unique, strong password for Twitter."