VIDEO: George Harrison finds death is no escape from hackers

It would be nice to think George Harrison could rest in peace. But it seems his official Twitter account, run by the late Beatle’s estate, was briefly hijacked by a hacker.

The hacker appeared to be oblivious to the fact that Harrison had died in 2001, long before Twitter had been created, which made their attempt to reach out to “The Quiet One” to help him secure his account look a little silly.

The hacker changed the brief biog on the @GeorgeHarrison profile to read as follows:

Hey George, follow @j5ziol when you see this and shoot me a DM. I’ll help you secure your accounts :) I don’t want to cause you any harm, thanks bud.

As I explain in my video about the incident, when the hacker realised that Harrison had actually died 15 years ago he felt a complete wombat.

The hacker’s Twitter account has since been suspended.

There are a few lessons here:

1. Everyone should be careful not to reuse passwords between different accounts – perhaps the most likely way that the @GeorgeHarrison account was compromised.
2. All Twitter users should enable two-step verification (2SV) for a higher level of protection.
3. Hackers should do a better job of keeping up with their rock history.

If you like my video, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and is the co-host of the popular "Smashing Security" podcast. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.