Dicky Cheung’s Weibo account hacked; false rumors of illness scare friends
10/19/2010 11:26:00 AM
kenmouse
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Dicky Cheung’s Sina weibo account was hacked into yesterday morning. Claiming to be Dicky, the hacker daringly left several false messages on his weibo, saying 1) he has stomach cancer and it’s in the final stages, 2) he is separating from his wife Jess Zhang, and 3) he is leaving the HK entertainment industry. These messages caused a lot of fear and concern from Dicky’s friends and fans, many of whom moved quickly to get in touch with the artist. Dicky, who was at home sleeping when the incident occurred, acted quickly to clarify matters and notify friends and family once he found out what had happened.Yesterday morning at 3:11am HK time, the hacker left the first message on Dicky’s weibo: “Recently, I’ve been really tired…after much thought and struggle….I have decided to leave the Hong Kong entertainment industry due to personal reasons, and will never retract my decision!” 20 minutes later, the hacker left 2 more ‘bombs’on Dicky’s weibo: “My ‘fate’ with Ms Zhang [Dicky’s wife] will have dissipated as of this posting” and “This afternoon, I went by myself to the hospital to get my medical report – stomach cancer, final stage.”
As soon as these messages were posted, Dicky’s friends and fans – believing them to be real -- were immediately concerned, leaving various messages of support and encouragement for him on his weibo. Even his good friend, fellow artist Jimmy Lin, who co-starred with him in several series, was ‘duped’ by the hacker – he left a message of support for Dicky, stating: “Remember, you are the Monkey King and I am Ne Zha – we will reunite once again to fight this illness!” The situation started to get further out of hand when other artists such as Andrew Lam and Gillian Chung as well as various fans also left messages of support for Dicky.
At 4am HK time, Dicky’s buddy Andy Hui left a message on his own weibo clarifying the matter, indicating that he has already gotten in touch with Dicky and exposing the hacker situation – he also told friends not to worry, since everything the hacker posted is false. Even after being exposed, the hacker – who named himself ‘Hacker.H’ – continued to wreak havoc on weibo, arrogantly ‘challenging’ Dicky by proclaiming that he was “only trying to test out the security functions on his iphone 4” and also publicly posting Dicky’s weibo log-in and password.
Dicky was finally able to regain control of his account at 5:03am and left a message on his weibo, stating: “This is Dicky Cheung. Everything is completely fine with my life – my weibo was invaded by a hacker and everything that was posted earlier is completely false!” Dicky’s fans in China also tried to help him change his password as quickly as possible, despite a threat from the same hacker to hack into the account again, posting the message : “You guys are making my job difficult, causing me to come back and hack again…you guys don’t want me to sleep, huh?”
The entire situation took 80 minutes to resolve and get things back to normal. During that time, Dicky accepted an interview with our reporter, clarifying the situation: “Andy [Hui] called my home in the middle of the night to let me know of the situation, which scared my entire family, especially my mom, who saw the surprised and concerned expression on my face as I was talking on the phone. For a moment there, I didn’t know what to do – I wasn’t able to get onto weibo via iphone and it didn’t work on my computer either.” (Didn’t use your wife’s weibo to clarify?) “My wife was in Beijing and at that time, probably sleeping – plus I don’t know her password.” (The hacker arrogantly revealed your log-in and password and proclaimed that he would continue to hack your account?) “If that’s true, then I will be calling the police in the morning.”
After the situation was resolved, our reporter contacted Dicky again – he confirmed that he has already been in contact with Sina and they will be doing an investigation: “For the hacker to have those types of skills is very ‘smart’, but he should use them for good things. Even though the situation didn’t create too much ‘harm’ for me personally, it scared my friends and family to death.” (You’re not planning to call the police?) “Unless it happens every day, otherwise, I am just going to look at it as a practical joke and ‘laugh it off’, as I don’t want to waste police resources on this. I will also issue a statement clarifying the situation.” (How about your wife?) “She is very busy, so haven’t had the chance to contact her yet. The one good thing is that I found out so many friends love me so much that they would be concerned for me like that. Even though there is little we can do to protect ourselves from this kind of stuff, this situation proves that ‘good conquers evil’. Hopefully, the hacker will reflect and stop doing it, as there is a ‘fine line between a genius and a lunatic.’”
Yesterday afternoon, Dicky released a statement: “Everything in my life is perfectly fine – my emotions, my family, my health, all are perfectly steady. Unfortunately, my weibo account was hacked into and false information was spread – I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to all my friends who worried about me and cried for me.” As for Dicky’s wife Jess, who was still in Beijing, laughed off the situation during a telephone interview: “I was asleep at that time; my friends told me about it this morning. I know Dicky and didn’t believe the rumors for one minute.”
Andy Hui, the first of Dicky’s friends to reach him after the situation occurred, recounted the incident: “I tried calling his cell phone at first, but he had turned it off since he was sleeping, so I called his home and woke him up. The 3 minutes that I waited for him to pick up the phone was torture and felt like an eternity – my heart was beating fast and I was very scared, not knowing what I would do if the stuff was true. That ‘practical joke’ by the hacker caused a lot of real tears from many people. Hopefully it doesn’t happen again.”
Sina Corp. in China issued a message via weibo apologizing to Dicky. As for Sina Hong Kong, a spokesman for the company indicated that in the future, they will heighten security measures on weibo and reminded users to choose more complicated password combinations.
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