A hacker who cracked into the MySpace accounts of several recording artists -- including Chris Brown, Rihanna, Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy -- pleaded guilty Monday to charges of credit card fraud and hacking. This hacker also allegedly used his administrative access to the social network to break into the personal Gmail account of Miley Cyrus, according to Wired.com's Threat Level blog.
The story of hacker Josh Holly, 21, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., is an interesting tale of deception and exploitation that all started with him tricking a MySpace employee into giving him access leading to information that included customer accounts and passwords. After he was in, Holly wormed his way into the profiles of several musical artists and sent spam in their names, earning more than $100,000 from the companies he promoting.
Cyrus' Gmail was cracked because the password she used for her MySpace account was the same as the one she used for the e-mail account. Holly that figured that out, snooped around and found some provocative photos of Cyus that were eventually published online. What I find most interesting about the story, however, is that social engineering and bad password management are still a goldmine for hackers.