Hackers gain access to celebrity Twitpic accounts

Hackers have gained access to celebrities Britney Spears and Ellen DeGeneres Twitpic accounts, causing the service to be partly shutdown on Sunday.

Twitpic, a service which allows Twitter users to share images, says the hackers gained access to the accounts by using a vulnerability in the service's email posting system which allowed them to continually keep trying different PIN's until they found the correct one.

I want to stress that no account information was compromised, the vulnerability only allowed someone to post a photo to Twitpic/Twitter on someone’s behalf, but did not allow access to their account in any way

Noah Everett said on the Twitpic blog.

Once we were made aware of the issue we immediately began work on a fix and also shut down email system to prevent any unauthorized postings.

The Associated Press says messages sent out from the hacked accounts included one saying Britney Spears had died. Everett says Twitpic is already working with ISP's to track down the hackers and is yet to decide what action to take against them. The issue was not Twitter related, and Everett is clear to point that out

I want to make it clear that this was NOT a Twitter issue, but a Twitpic issue, and I take full responsibility for it.