250,000 Twitter Accounts Hacked

By Gilbert Falso :: 7:26 PM

Twitter has released information that up to 250,000 users on the microblogging service may have been compromised by hackers. Sensitive information, including usernames, e-mail addresses, and encrypted versions of user passwords may have been stolen.

“This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data,” the company said in a blog post.

In one hacking instance, Twitter was able to observe the incident as it happened, and shut it down.

No group or organization has claimed responsibility for the hacking attempt, and Twitter is not yet certain exactly what information may have been revealed from the user database.

This hacking attempt is the latest in a string of hacking announcements this week. Earlier, both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal admitted that hackers had been able to gain access to the newspapers’ computer systems, and had been active on their internal networks for many weeks.

In an email sent to users who had been compromised, Twitter explained, “this attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident. The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked. For that reason we felt that it was important to reset your password and publicize this attack while we still gather information. We are also helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users.”

This story is continuing to develop, and we will follow it and update as applicable.