Twitter Accounts Hacked
Twitter reported on its blog earlier today (Jan 5th US date) that around 33 accounts of prominent twitter users has been hacked. Hacked accounts included those of Barack Obama, Britney Spears among others. This follows close on heels of a Twitter Phishing Scam though Twitter maintains that the cases are different and not related in any way.
According to Twitter, these accounts were hacked by an individual who hacked into tools used by Twitter support to edit the email address associated with their Twitter account when they can’t remember or get stuck. Twitter has removed these tools offline as of now and might put them back only after necessary security measures are added on to it. As of now they mentioned considering the introduction of Open Authentication system, though it doesn’t seem a strong security against the kind of e-attacks Twitter saw in the past week including the latest hack.
One is prompted to wonder the benefit the hacker stood to derive by hacking into Twitter accounts, other than the sadistic pleasure of breaking security. In a way the whole attack happened at a good time, i.e before it goes mainstream. This will allow a more secure environment for the microblogging service regardless of what a breach of security might result in. However, it does dent the image of one of the fastest going Internet tool which recently put an ad for a hand that can build monetisation capability to its service. At the same time hack attempts also signify the growing prominence of Twitter itself, which can only help the service in garnering more users and therefore eventual business and not to mention some free publicty.
By the way you can follow WATBlog on Twitter ..unhacked and safe of course (which is a bit of a let down if you see it from the prominence perspective but we will live with it for now). to get the latest developments in the digital media world.
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If getting hacked is a status symbol, I put up my hand!