Although this is not a WordPress issue, we want to inform our readers about a hacker attack on Twitter today.
Breaking News: Twitter Hacked by #TurkishHacker?
On Monday, May 10, 2010, we noticed several tweets to the hashtag of #TurkishHacker. These indicated that a malicious hacker has hacked directly into Twitter and removed all following and followers to reflect 0 (zero) from user accounts.
Twitter Follow Bug:
According to Twitter.com, they have identified an issue wherein a bug was found that permitted a user to “force” other users to follow them. Twitter has set the follow/unfollow is set to 0 (zero) while they're fix this bug.
At 10:18 am (PST) they stated that protected updates did not become public as a result to this bug.
More information can be found at:
http://status.twitter.com/
http://mashable.com/2010/05/10/twitocalypse-heavy-metal/
http://mashable.com/2010/05/10/twitter-follow-bug/
If you have any issues with your Twitter account after they've fixed resolved this issue, Dan Morris, a Twitter Security expert, can help you. He specializes in securing Twitter accounts and will be speaking at our WordPress Security Teleseminar on May 19, 2010 at 8pm CST.
Update 5/10/2010 at 4:00 pm: We'd like to thank K_Wasseem for informing us of new information that was discovered and we have updated this post accordingly.
Update 5/10/2010 at 1:03pm: Twitter has just fixed our account, http://twitter.com/WPSecurityLock.
Securely yours,
Regina Smola
Follow me on Twitter
Follow WPSecurityLock on Twitter
P.S. If you've found this post helpful or have any questions, please leave your comment below.
@WPSecurityLock:
Urm, please have a look at this post: http://mashable.com/2010/05/10/twitocalypse-heavy-metal/
Which one of you guys are saying the truth, is this really a hack attempt or just a mere chance exploit as mashable says?
//K_Wasseem
(7php.com)
Thanks K Wasseem for your information! I have updated our post to reflect your findings over at Mashable’s. We appreciate that you are keeping us and the community informed. It feels great knowing that Twitter was on this and got everything fixed right away.
Regina,
you are most welcomed. 😉 At the end of the day, the true reward is to see the community is the winner as a team 😉
Else, in your updated post I see you have linked ‘K_Wasseem’ to ‘http://status.twitter.com’, I would appreciate if you changed it to the appropriate one ‘http://7php.com’ since I’m not affiliated whatsoever with status.twitter.com 😉
Keep posting, I enjoy your post, observations, critics and updates. (and I’m sure so many of us do)
Best regards,
//K_Wasseem
(7php.com)
You are so right! I’m glad we are all coming together to help each other. We may not be able to stop malicious people from trying to attack, but we can certainly fight back.
Must of been a long day… I changed your link 🙂
Thanks for your kind words. We will keep spreading awareness as much as we can.
Thanks for heads-up Regina!
I haven’t been as frequent to Twitter as I used to lately and rushed to it while reading your post 🙂
BTW, thanks for attending webinar last night, I’m registering for yours on May 19. I just hope I can make it, next week is gonna be even crazier than this one, if it is at all possible 😉