Frenchman hacks Obama's Twitter account

A French man has been arrested for hacking into the Twitter account of President Barack Obama, French police said on Wednesday.

The 25-year-old man, who lives in central France, also stole information online about other celebrities, including Britney Spears, stealing passwords for email accounts and publishing personal information on the Web.

This individual spread information about a dozen American personalities, notably Barack Obama, on specialist blogs, Adeline Champagnat, head of the French office against online fraud, told Reuters by telephone.

The hacker, who went by the online name of HackerCroll, was driven by the thrill of the challenge and appeared to be more interested in the private life of his victims than on obtaining especially sensitive data.

It would have been more of a problem if he (Barack Obama) had posted sensitive information, said Champagnat, without saying what he had done with the president's Twitter account.

French police were given a heads-up several months ago by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and officials believe he acted alone.

He thinks he is good at this, and he is, said Champagnat, adding he had had no specialist training.

(Reporting by Gerard Bon; Writing by Sophie Taylor)