Most high profile hacking today is for profit. The Russian mob and other criminal gangs are often involved in taking over computers, stealing credit cards, and threatening websites with denial-of-service attacks.
That’s why it was somewhat refreshing to see what a hacker did to Twitter yesterday, breaking into 33 celebrity accounts to leave messages on their behalf.
Here’s what CNN’s Rick Sanchez got:
Fox News got “Breaking: Bill O Riley is gay”.
There may have been some profit motive, as President Elect Barack Obama’s account was hacked to have a link to a site that offered a $500 gas card for taking a survey. The Facebook page on Twitter had a link to a porn site. Both sites had affiliate links associated with them, meaning that someone would be getting a referral fee.
The break-ins were tracked down to someone called Gmz from a site called Digital Gangster. It is not yet known if Twitter will pursue the matter legally. If money was made from affiliate accounts, it should be easy to track the person down. A post on the Digital Gangster said:
“That guy [who hacked the sites] must have been a very generous individual. To hand out accounts rather than use that for profit. Could it be enough for respect or just enough for that user to be identified as an “idiot”?”