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Hackers try to shatter what's left of our collective hearts with fake news by breaking into Sony Music's Twitter page to announce yet another celebrity death.
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Hackers try to shatter what's left of our collective hearts with fake news by breaking into Sony Music's Twitter page to announce yet another celebrity death.
The company said it "apologises to Britney Spears and her fans for any confusion."
A Sony spokeswoman refused to comment further. A Twitter spokesman did not return emails seeking comment.
Britney Spears performs earlier this month at the 2016 Jingle Ball. Photo: AP
The 35-year-old international superstar and Grammy Award winner is "is fine and well," Spears' manager Adam Leber told CNN.
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In the first of several false tweets, the company's Sony Music Global Twitter account published a short message reading "RIP @britneyspears" and "#RIPBritney 1981-2016," along with a teary-eyed emoji.
It was followed up with "Britney Spears is dead by accident! We will tell you more soon".
The Twitter account of folk music icon Bob Dylan may also have been subjected to a hoax, when it sent out a now-deleted tweet reading "Rest in peace @britneyspears."
The Sony spokeswoman confirmed that Bob Dylan is also a Sony artist and that the company's statement "holds true for what's happened."
In both cases, the suspicious tweets were followed by missives signed by OurMine, a self-described security group that has become famous for hacking high profile Twitter accounts as a means of advertising and to shine a light on poor security.
In these cases it's unclear whether OurMine was the original hacker of the accounts or merely hacked in afterwards to check if the Spears claims were genuine. Speaking to Mashable, the group claims it was the latter.
Another unit of Sony, Sony Pictures Entertainment, was the victim of a devastating cyber attack in November 2014, which the FBI concluded was the work of North Korea.
That hack came a month before Sony Pictures was due to release the film The Interview, about two journalists recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
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