Twitter fame! One of only 250k to be hacked

According to Twitter, I’m one of 250,000 users who have possibly had their account hacked.

According to TechCrunch, this makes me cool!

After reading around, in addition to changing my password (natch), I’ve followed the advice in this Slate article and switched off java in my browser as well.

Dear Twitter User:

As a precautionary security measure, we have reset your Twitter account password. Check your inbox for a separate email from Twitter with instructions on how to reset your password. If you don’t see an email, you can go to this page in our Help Center to request a password reset. More information is below.

We recently detected an attack on our systems in which the attackers may have had access to limited user information – specifically, your username, email address and an encrypted/salted version of your password (not the actual letters and numbers in your password). Further information about the attack can be found in this blog post.

Since your password has been reset, your old password will not work when you try to log into Twitter. We strongly encourage you to take this opportunity to select a strong password – at least 10 (but more is better) characters and a mixture of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols – that you are not using for any other accounts or sites. Using the same password for multiple online accounts significantly increases your odds of being compromised.

For more information about making your Twitter and other Internet accounts more secure, read our Help Center documentation or the FTC’s guide on passwords.

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.

Twitter

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