Unknown hackers compromise Twitter user accounts

A hacking incident has left 250,000 Twitter accounts compromised to an unknown hacker group.

According to All Things D, the hacking took place Friday evening and is a part of a recent string of cyber attacks that have also hit The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal who claim they were attacked due to their investigative reporting on the Chinese government.

Bob Lord Director of Information and Security for Twitter announced the hacking on their blog earlier Friday.

This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later. However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.

Lord also went on to say that if a user’s account information was leaked then they would have been informed in an email and would be able to change their password.

He also cautioned everyone, even those that were not affected by the hack, to practice proper “password hygiene” not only on Twitter but everywhere else on the Internet as well in order to avoid such complications.

It was also explained that the hackers were very sophisticated and clearly knew what they were doing because no information has been released regarding who they were.