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Official blogpost: http://blog.twitter.com/2013/02/keeping-our-users-secure.html http://blog.twitter.com/2013/02/keeping-our-users-secure.htm... Edit: I wonder

by 0x0 14y ago

Official blogpost: http://blog.twitter.com/2013/02/keeping-our-users-secure.html http://blog.twitter.com/2013/02/keeping-our-users-secure.htm... Edit: I wonder if the bad guys were able to access private Direct Messages, too. There's always talk about resetting passwords, but nobody ever mentions all the other confidential data that might be pastebin'ed later.

nemothekid 14y ago
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. Anyone have any clue what the possible motives behind this could be? My best guess is someone is trying to mine for private data that may have been sent over DM (Maybe Obama is sending nuke launch codes over DM). Other than that twitter's data is mostly public and I don't see the benefit of carrying out such an attack to simply impersonate Justin Bieber on Twitter. I also don't suspect Twitter to be the type of company that would leave their passwords easily crackable either. Doesn't make sense that were mining for valid emails either, there are cheaper ways of getting access to those.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- rdl 14y ago
  "HACKED BY CHINESE!!!" is the default assumption. There are moderate numbers of people who use Twitter for online activism. That would point more to Syria or Iran or another Middle Eastern country, since Twitter is more popular there than in China or the Chinese language.
- taligent 14y ago
  Nobody hacks Twitter just to get valid emails or impersonate someone. That's ridiculous. Pretty clearly this was the work of governments e.g. China, Iran who are trying to find out more about political dissidents or the sources of leaks. They are the only ones who would use lucrative exploits against Twitter, NYT, WSJ etc.
  - nemothekid 14y ago
    So to make this clear, the best guess is these attacks are being done by governments in an effort to find out who is leaking data to Twitter, NYT, etc? Pretty interesting if you ask me, is it likely the use would sick the best hackers at the NSA if top secret information was being leaked on the bizzaro world's Chinese Twitter? It almost sounds like the prologue to the worlds first CyberWar.
    - 0x0 14y ago
      To reiterate what I've been posting elsewhere, I'm sure there is a lot of compromising material in the Direct Messages of certain well-picked accounts, for a wide range of motives.
  - bitcartel 14y ago
    There is nothing clear about this attack at all, thus it's grossly unfair to cast aspersions on any country or select group of individuals unless there is hard evidence.
  - chris_mahan 14y ago
    Or perhaps US government...
  - rasengan0 14y ago
    At first i thought the email was phishing but sure enough my acct was reset even with 17 chars. i wonder if Twitter can cull any correlations from this compromised pool, epidemiological-like

by 0x0 14y ago

nemothekid 14y ago

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. Anyone have any clue what the possible motives behind this could be? My best guess is someone is trying to mine for private data that may have been sent over DM (Maybe Obama is sending nuke launch codes over DM). Other than that twitter's data is mostly public and I don't see the benefit of carrying out such an attack to simply impersonate Justin Bieber on Twitter. I also don't suspect Twitter to be the type of company that would leave their passwords easily crackable either. Doesn't make sense that were mining for valid emails either, there are cheaper ways of getting access to those.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rdl 14y ago
"HACKED BY CHINESE!!!" is the default assumption. There are moderate numbers of people who use Twitter for online activism. That would point more to Syria or Iran or another Middle Eastern country, since Twitter is more popular there than in China or the Chinese language.
taligent 14y ago
Nobody hacks Twitter just to get valid emails or impersonate someone. That's ridiculous. Pretty clearly this was the work of governments e.g. China, Iran who are trying to find out more about political dissidents or the sources of leaks. They are the only ones who would use lucrative exploits against Twitter, NYT, WSJ etc.
- nemothekid 14y ago
  So to make this clear, the best guess is these attacks are being done by governments in an effort to find out who is leaking data to Twitter, NYT, etc? Pretty interesting if you ask me, is it likely the use would sick the best hackers at the NSA if top secret information was being leaked on the bizzaro world's Chinese Twitter? It almost sounds like the prologue to the worlds first CyberWar.
  - 0x0 14y ago
    To reiterate what I've been posting elsewhere, I'm sure there is a lot of compromising material in the Direct Messages of certain well-picked accounts, for a wide range of motives.
- bitcartel 14y ago
  There is nothing clear about this attack at all, thus it's grossly unfair to cast aspersions on any country or select group of individuals unless there is hard evidence.
- chris_mahan 14y ago
  Or perhaps US government...
- rasengan0 14y ago
  At first i thought the email was phishing but sure enough my acct was reset even with 17 chars. i wonder if Twitter can cull any correlations from this compromised pool, epidemiological-like