BEIJING, Jan. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- The Twitter accounts of U.S. president-elect Barack Obama, singer Britney Spears and other prominent figures were hacked on Monday.

    Twitter founder Biz Stone, in a post on the official company blog, said a total of 33 Twitter accounts had been hacked including those of Obama, Spears and Rick Sanchez, a CNN television anchor with tens of thousands of followers. As a result, fake messages sent out in their names on the micro-blogging service.

    Twitter is a social-networking blog site that allows users to send status updates, or "tweets," from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook in less than 140 characters.

    "We immediately locked down the accounts and investigated the issue," Stone said: "These accounts were compromised by an individual who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses to help people do things like edit the email address associated with their Twitter account."

    The message from the fake Obama invited recipients to take a survey and win 500 dollars worth of gas while the CNN anchor purportedly told followers that he was "high on crack" and would probably not be coming into work on Monday.

    Twitter was also the target of a phishing attack over the weekend in which scamsters attempted to obtain passwords and other personal information from Twitter users. Stone said Monday's hacking incident was unrelated to the phishing scam.

    The attacks are the first known security issues with Twitter, which has grown as a popular social networking site during the last year.

    Launched in August 2006, it has been embraced by a number of celebrities including Obama, who has more than 150,000 followers, and four-time NBA champion Shaquille O'Neal of the Phoenix Suns.

    (Agencies)