« Holiday Recap: Spending Declined in Recession and Short Shopping Season | Main | It's 2009. Please Retire the Holiday Copy »

January 5, 2009

Twitter Accounts Hacked: Obama, Britney and Fox News Affected

A number of big name Twitter accounts were hacked this morning, a day after Twitter users were targeted in a large-scale phishing attack.

In all, 33 accounts were briefly commandeered by a person or persons who got their hands on editing tools used by Twitter's support team. Among the victims were some of the best-known Twitterers, including Barack Obama, CNN's Rick Sanchez and Britney Spears. The Obama hijackers, who had control of the Prez-Elect's account for just a few minutes, took the opportunity to post an affiliate link to a page with a survey and promotion. With several others, the hackers' intent was merely malicious. I've borrowed the below screen grabs from Brent Csutoras.

According to Twitter the hacked accounts were unrelated to a phishing attack that happened over the weekend. That incident was a straightforward scam that used e-mails presenting themselves as Twitter direct messages to get users to divulge password information.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at January 5, 2009 2:03 PM

Digg this! Add to del.icio.us Stumble It!

Comments