Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake targeted by German hackers

Two German youths have allegedly been using Trojans to hack into computer belonging to over 50 pop stars, looking primarily for unreleased music but also for personal information, documents, e-mails and intimate photos.

Among the targeted music celebrities are Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson and Ke$ha. The actual attack vector hasn’t been mentioned by the German police and the prosecutors, but it is likely that the computers have been infected when the victims followed links from e-mails or messages on social networks that took them to malicious websites hosting the Trojans.

According to The Telegraph, the two young hackers (aged 17 and 23) have been bragging about their exploits on various Internet forums.

They allegedly sold some of the music they stole, and tried to use a compromising picture of Ke$ha’s to blackmail her into giving them money, but their plan failed. The German police and the FBI got involved when Kelly Clarkson reported to the police that her fans alerted her to the presence of some of her unreleased songs on the Internet.