Twitter Falls Prey to Hacker Attack: How To Check If Your Account Got Exposed?

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Oh no say it isn't true! Twitter has been hacked. Hackers have been going haywire this year, as recently, several media companies, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have fallen prey to hacker attacks. Latest victim being Twitter, the social networking site, announced on Friday that it has become a target of a highly sophisticated attack.

 

In a blog post of the company stated that "Keeping our users secure", Twitter has found unusual patterns this week, that led it to identify unauthorized attempts to access user data. According to the blog, the attackers may have had access to information of approximately 250,000 users, including their usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of their passwords.

Twitter said "As a precautionary security measure, we have reset passwords and revoked session tokens for these accounts. If your account was one of them, you will have recently received (or will shortly) an email from us at the address associated with your Twitter account notifying you that you will need to create a new password. Your old password will not work when you try to log in to Twitter".

Although, a very small percentage of our users were potentially affected by this attack, given the fact that it has over 500 million registered users. Twitter approached U.S. Department of Homeland Security and security experts to address the problem, as this attack was no a work of an amateur.

Meanwhile Twitter is encouraging it's users to disable java in their browsers, until further notice, here are few signs to find out whether your own Twitter Account has been hacked or not. Take a look at the slideshow below:

Weird Tweets in your feed

Weird Tweets in your feed

This is the most obvious sign that your Twitter account has been compromised. Look through your recent Tweets and if there are any Tweets you don't remember sending, you may have been hacked.

 

Direct Messages you did not send.

Direct Messages you did not send.

Check your Direct Messages to see what you've sent recently. Again, if there are any messages that look unfamiliar - especially if they're directing the recipient to a strange website URL - this is a sign that you've been hacked.

Unknown Apps
 

Unknown Apps

In your profile settings on Twitter, check the sections for Apps on the left-hand menu screen. Apps can affect your account and occasionally access your personal information, so they need your permission to be installed. If you've been hacked, you may see unknown Apps you never gave permission to. Click the Revoke Access button.

Increase in Followers List

Increase in Followers List

Are you suddenly following lots of new people you don't know? Twitter malware may hijack your account and make you follow spambots.

 

 Increase in Followers List

Increase in Followers List

Are you suddenly following lots of new people you don't know? Twitter malware may hijack your account and make you follow spambots.

 

 

WARNING!

WARNING!

If you have discovered any of these symptoms, change your Twitter password immediately. You should also change the password for any third-party account that's linked to your Twitter feed, such as Facebook. Then, contact Twitter support using this page: https://support.twitter.com/forms/hacked.

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