Hack Disrupts Shams Al-Baroudi’s Facebook Page

Egyptian retired actress Shams Al-Baroudi said her personal Facebook account was hacked and an indecent video was posted on it before she was able to remove the content quickly.

In a long post on her account, Al-Baroudi said she woke up to dozens of repeated phone calls. She then received a call from her daughter telling her that an indecent video had been posted on her personal page.

Al-Baroudi said she rushed into the account and was surprised by the video that appeared there. She added that she could not bear to watch it all because it contained indecent scenes, and she deleted it at once.

After the incident, Al-Baroudi took quick steps to secure the account and prevent another hack, with help from her daughter on the urgent technical measures. She said she considered filing an official report with the Internet police, but her daughter told her that deleting the video could make it harder to track the culprit digitally and more difficult to identify the hacker.

Shams Al-Baroudi was one of the best-known Egyptian cinema stars in the 1960s and 1970s. She retired from acting in the mid-1980s, wore the hijab and chose a quieter life.

Over the past months, however, she has kept in touch with her audience through her official page by sharing videos about her daily life, her memories with her late husband, veteran actor Hassan Youssef, and some human and family moments.

Her film career began in the early 1960s after she studied at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts. Born in Giza Governorate in 1945, she went on to make many films that achieved major popular success.