If you are not able to open your Twitter account even after keying in the correct login and password, perhaps your account has been compromised. The micro blogging firm has detected a major security breach that left information on passwords of 2.5 lakh accounts exposed to hackers. It had reset passwords of the comprised 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,” Bob Lord, Director of Information Security, said.
Twitter has admitted to a “sophisticated” attack on its security network. It, however, claimed that only a small percentage of its user base was under attack. It has asked its users to disable Java on their computers in their browsers in order to plug the holes.
“Our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information, usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords for approximately 250,000 users,” Bob Lord wrote on the Twitter blog.
“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 organisations have also been recently similarly attacked,” he said.
He asked the users to check whether 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,” he said.