‘You’ve been Punk’d’ : Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter account hacked at TED

With over 6.3-million followers worldwide, Hollywood icon and new media entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher is one of the Twitter elite, and is the sixth most followed person on the micro-blogging site. But, according to a post on Read Write Web, earlier yesterday at technology conference TED, Kutcher’s Twitter account appears to have been compromised – largely due to one “snarky and politically minded adversary” who managed to post two tweets over a local network, indicating that the hacker was in the near vicinity when he committed the security breach.

In the tweet, the hacker wrote “Ashton, you’ve been Punk’d, This account is not secure. Dude, where’s my SSL?” read the first of the two tweets, a humorous play on Kutcher’s hidden camera practical joke series for MTV, Punk’d as well as his first big Hollywood role in “Dude, where’s my car?”

The emphasis on implementing SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) for Twitter appears to echo the growing sentiment which many users have been calling for: Stricter security measures for Twitter and Facebook.

The second tweet further highlights this: “P.S. This is for those young protesters around the world who deserve not to have their Facebook & Twitter accounts hacked like this. #SSL”

Clearly the hacker, an avid TED attendee, is doing his or her best to prove a point and, according to Read Write Web, he (or she) may have succeeded: “How excited will the stars Twitter seeks to get onboard be when they find out how easy it is for strangers to hijack their identities? Probably not very excited!”

Surprisingly, Kutcher hasn’t responded to any of this on Twitter. Both tweets were posted to Kutcher’s @aplusk account on Wednesday evening and were still on his page as of 12:35 p.m. GMT+2 on Thursday.