Sony Music has apologised to Britney Spears after one of the organisation’s official Twitter accounts falsely suggested that the pop star had died, following the hacking of its social media outlets over Christmas.

Indeed, the 35 year old singer took to her own Twitter account on Monday (December 26th) to prove that she was alive and well, sharing a collage of four pictures of herself pulling faces for the camera.

Britney SpearsBritney Spears is NOT dead

On Christmas Day, Sony’s global account had tweeted “Britney Spears is dead by accident! We will tell you more soon. #RIPBritney”. It quickly removed the rogue tweets, but not before the internet had lost its marbles for a few minutes before it was revealed as a hoax.

Sony then announced that its global account had been “compromised” but that security had now “been rectified”, adding that the entertainment company “apologises to Britney Spears and her fans for any confusion”.

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A representative for the company then later confirmed: “The Twitter was hacked and the tweets are now deleted. Britney Spears is alive and well.”

Although not proven, the hack appears to have been perpetrated by a group known as OurMine Security, which has been behind several high-profile hacks throughout 2016. Other victims have been Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai.

Memorably, Sony’s internal e-mail accounts were hacked almost exactly two years ago and leaked to the public, which included details of corporate finances and correspondence between the company’s executives and Hollywood bigwigs.

North Korea was accused by the U.S. of orchestrating the hack, with the diplomatic fallout leading to the cancellation of a Christmas movie called ‘The Interview’, which depicted the assassination of the North Korean dictator.

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