Britney Spears Twitter Hacked, Claims She's Dead

LOS ANGELES — Hackers have broadcast bogus information about celebrities including Britney Spears and Ellen DeGeneres after breaking into their Twitpic accounts.

The Internet messaging system shut down part of its service after the hacking was discovered Sunday because of what the Charleston, S.C.-based company described as a "vulnerability" in the mobile posting system.

Twitpic Inc. said to disregard a message from Spears' account that incorrectly said the singer had died, and they were "implementing a fix immediately."

Twitpic is a program that allows users of Twitter to share photographs. It is not owned by Twitter Inc.

E-mails to Noah Winecoff at Twitpic and the press office at San Francisco-based Twitter were not immediately returned Sunday.