With several high-profile Twitter accounts being hacked, the company has not only reset their passwords but also sent warning emails to thousands of other Twitter users whose accounts weren’t compromised.
While giving no details regarding the source or cause of this compromise, the company released a statement, and wrote, “When we believe an account may have been compromised, we reset the password and send an email letting the account owner know this has happened along with information about creating a new password. This is a routine part of our processes to protect our users. In this case, we unintentionally reset passwords of a larger number of accounts, beyond those that we believed to have been compromised.”
Among the users who received emails regarding a password reset found that a few of their tweets were deleted while others discovered spam links that were posted to their account without their knowledge – one of the indicators of a compromised account.
David Mitchell, a comedian, was one such individual who found one of his tweets missing that linked to his column in the Observer, a popular newspaper. Also, the BBC’s Radio 4 Twitter account experienced problems with their feed, and duly informed its followers that it was trying to get to the bottom of the matter. Other Twitter accounts of the BBC also received the warning email along with media companies such as Techcrunch.
Users were critical of the email that Twitter had sent, saying that it resembled a ‘phishing scam’ – an email that tricks users into providing personal details while impersonating an official email.