Someone hacked Katy Perry's Twitter to send out NSFW tweets and shout-out Taylor Swift
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Katy Perry 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. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
Katy Perry's 89 million Twitter followers may have been a tad bemused at what they saw when they logged in to the social network early Monday.
If the profanity-laced tweets that were sent out by Perry's account are anything to go by, it seems that the pop star's Twitter was hacked.
A swift succession of unsavoury posts were tweeted from the profile in a matter of minutes. Some contained just a solitary emoji, whilst others were obscene statements directed at random accounts.
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Perry, or whoever manages her extremely popular profile, quickly spotted the unorthodox activity and deleted the tweets. But not before some eagle-eyed Twitter users managed to screenshot the messages for all to relive.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Some of the posts shared by the hacker indicate a method to the madness. One particular tweet that mentioned Taylor Swift, for example, seemed like an olive branch intended to smooth the rift between the alleged foes. The message, which read "miss u baby @taylorswift," was the most pleasant of the bunch. Could it be that the entire elaborate scheme was just a super-fan's attempt at restoring a long-lost friendship?
In fact, one of the earliest tweets sent out during the breach may have even given away the hacker's identity. The post -- which contained another reference to Swift in the form of a play on the lyrics to her mega-hit Shake it Off -- stated "haha follow @sw4ylol #hackersgonnahack." The same '@sw4ylol' Twitter profile previously tweeted an image of a takedown notice it received from Universal Music Group in regards to an attempt made to upload a Katy Perry song to SoundCloud, reports TechCrunch.
The fact that the most followed account on Twitter fell victim to a hack is another example of how common the practice has become on social media. Individual accounts belonging to celebrities, such as Khloe Kardashian, Ashton Kutcher, and Lady Gaga have all been hacked in the past. Even the U.S. Central Command Twitter profile suffered a breach last year, prompting President Barack Obama to speak on the need for tighter cyber-security.