[Ammi]

The security breach is one of the biggest to ever affect Twitter, which has 200 million active users, and highlights growing concerns over the danger of so-called cyber attacks.

Twitter said it had warned all the users who had their passwords stolen, and reset them to stop further risk.

But security experts warned that the hackers had possession of a potentially valuable cache of information, as many people's Twitter passwords are identical to those they use for other purposes, including banking.

There is also a risk that Twitter's "internal network" has been compromised by the hacking, which could potentially compromose other information.

The hack came after the social media giant warned earlier this week of attempts to gain access to its user data. It said that it shut down one attack moments after it was detected

Bob Lord, Twitter's director of security, said: "We encourage all users to take this opportunity to ensure that they are following good password hygiene, on Twitter and elsewhere on the internet.

"Make sure you use a strong password – at least 10 (but more is better) characters and a mixture of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols."

Twitter said in its blog that the 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," the company said.

"For that reason we felt that it was important to publicise this attack while we still gather information, and we are helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the internet safer for all users."

One expert said that the Twitter hack probably happened after an employee's home or work computer was compromised through vulnerabilities in Java, a commonly used computing language whose weaknesses have been well publicised.

Ashkan Soltani, an independent privacy and security researcher, said such a move would give attackers "a toehold" in Twitter's internal network, potentially allowing them either to sniff out user information as it traveled across the company's system or break into specific areas, such as the authentication servers that process users' passwords.

The relatively small number of users affected suggested either that attackers weren't on the network long or that they were only able to compromise a subset of the company's servers, he said.

The online attack comes after hacks into the computer systems of American. media and technology companies, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Both newspapers reported this week that their computer systems had been infiltrated by China-based hackers, likely to monitor media coverage the Chinese government deems important.

China has been accused of mounting a widespread, aggressive cyber-spying campaign for several years, trying to steal classified information and corporate secrets and to intimidate critics.

The Chinese foreign ministry could not be reached for comment Saturday, but the Chinese government has said those accusations are baseless and that China itself is a victim of cyber-attacks.

"Chinese law forbids hacking and any other actions that damage internet security," the Chinese Defence Ministry said.

Twitter is generally used to broadcast messages to the public, so the hacking might not immediately have yielded any important secrets. But the stolen credentials could be used to eavesdrop on private messages or track which internet address a user is posting from


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...000-users.html

[arista]

Yes hackers can attack any site.



Sign Of The Times.

[Nedusa]

This is another problem that was not discussed last week when we were discussing how personal info can be viewed by potential employers.

Even with privacy settings correctly applied there is always the possibility that your account or password can be hacked. So be warned do not put on any of these social networking sites ANY information you would want to keep secret from anybody.

If in doubt do not upload personal info ever....!!!

[arista]

Professional job: Twitter said in its blog that
the attack 'was not the work of amateurs, and we do not
believe it was an isolated incident.'
(Twitter's CEO Twitter Dick Costolo pictured)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz2Jk2GqodK