Did someone, perhaps a fan who felt Chen Xiuhuan had "robbed" a young television star of a top 10 spot in a popularity list, hack the veteran actress' Instagram account?

That is among the online reactions - both flippant and serious - after news came that Chen, fellow actress Aileen Tan and celebrity hairstylist David Gan have had their Instagram accounts targeted by hackers.

It is not known if the same culprit is involved, but the victims are not taking the matter lightly.

According to Lianhe Zaobao, Chen - who made the Top 10 Most Popular Female Artists list in Mediacorp's Star Awards last month - was targeted on April 25.

The day before the incident, she noticed suspicious activity as her account name was suddenly changed.

After she was alerted by friends and family, Chen, 53, tried changing her password to no avail and proceeded to "watch her photos getting deleted one by one", she wrote in a Facebook post.

She has lodged a police report.

In Tan's case, she received an e-mail last Thursday, asking her to verify her Instagram account if she did not want it to be deleted.

She clicked on a link to do so and the hackers got control of her account.

After she reported the incident to Facebook, her account was recovered and she did not lose any followers or photos.

"I'm very thankful to the digital team that helped to return my account to me. Hopefully, my Instagram account will be more stable by this weekend and I can start posting again," Tan, 52, told The Straits Times.

Gan, 56, told AsiaOne that he received an e-mail on May 2 about payment in exchange for the return of his account.

From May 2 to 4, he received four other e-mail. AsiaOne understands that the sum demanded was never specified.

Gan, who has more than 44,700 followers, confirmed that a police report was lodged.

Yesterday, Mediacorp told The Straits Times that actress Bonnie Loo, 24, and her fan club have reported five incidents of impersonation in the past to Facebook, and the fake accounts were all removed.

Fake Instagram accounts of actors Jeffrey Xu, 30, and Chen Hanwei, 49, had also been set up, with the creators getting in touch with the artists' clients. "Fortunately, the clients were IT-savvy enough to check with us," said Mediacorp.

Its cybersecurity department will take steps to help its artists protect their social media accounts.