Microblogging Mormons are up in arms after the Twitter account of the Church of Latter Day Saints was hijacked by pranksters.

Scallywags broke into the profile, probably by taking advantage of a weak password, to post tweets suggesting that the founder of the church, Joseph Smith, was a liar. Mendacious updates to the @LDSChurchNews feed suggested Smith had fabricated translations of sacred texts.

A number of followers subsequently posted their concerns about the messages on the microblogging site, net security firm Sophos reports.

A report by Church News, the official news site of the LDS Church, confirmed that the Mormons shut down the compromised account on Thursday after it was hijacked by hackers last weekend. The church found it tricky to track down Twitter administrators but received a sympathetic hearing once they did get in touch.

It's unclear when the suspended account, which had been active for about two months, will be restored.

Twitter profile hacking, more generally, is becoming increasingly commonplace. Previous victims have included the New York Times and Britney Spears, among many others. ®