[ insider_reports_insider ]
Celeb Twitters Hacked
SecurityProNews
Staff Writer
2009-01-06
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
It was an especially nasty Monday morning at Twitter yesterday. Likely the staff didn't have time to fully wallow in post-holiday back-to-work blues for all the fires to be put out. In addition to a widespread phishing scam over the weekend, 33 celebrity accounts were hacked.
 | | Celeb Twitters Hacked |  |
This led to prankster-type posts-Britney Spears talking about her large, dangerous whatsit, breaking news from Fox about Bill O'Reilly's sexuality, and CNN's Rick Sanchez talking about his crack habit and current elevation. One imagines if Prince Albert had a Twitter account, he'd suddenly plea to be let out of the can.
Somewhere "an individual"-Twitter says just one-is giggling uncontrollably. But Twitter isn't amused.
It would have been easy to assume that the hijacked accounts were the direct result of the weekend's phishing attempts, where accounts were compromised by Twitters signing into a fake Twitter website. But Twitter says this was a separate attack using the same method that cracked Sarah Palin's Yahoo account.
That is, the individual took advantage of the security tools offered for forgotten passwords. Biz Stone writes at the Twitter blog: These accounts were compromised by an individual who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses to help people do things like edit the email address associated with their Twitter account when they can't remember or get stuck. We considered this a very serious breach of security and immediately took the support tools offline. We'll put them back only when they're safe and secure.
About the Author:
SecurityProNews is a daily online and email publication focusing on internet security issues.
More insider_reports_insider Articles
Insider Reports RSS Feed
|
|
iEntry 10th Anniversary
RSS
Archive
