There's been mayhem at camp Twitter after a flood of mysterious “tweets” containing 'blocked-out text' appeared on the social networking site and caused pesky pop-up windows to open.
Twitter said on its “safety” feed on the site that the attack has now been “fully patched” and no longer works.
The ‘hacked tweets’ activated without being clicked on – it was enough for web surfers to move their mouse cursors over them and it was limited to visitors to the actual Twitter.com. Various third-party programs used to send and read tweets remained unaffected.
The concern is that the pop-ups could have contained malicious codes capable of taking over poorly protected computers.
Security breaches had been common in Twitter’s early days, but the company has since worked to beef up its security and the problems have become less common.
A security expert pointed out that Twitter has 'natural antibodies' against malicious worms and hacks. "With users tweeting around the clock somewhere in the world, it’s not surprising that the original worm and the inevitable copycats came to the attention of Twitter’s security team.They make a very dynamic feedback loop for Twitter,” he said speaking of a separate incident when several worms hit the site on Tuesday.
Are recent Twitter hacks a concern for you, or do you have full faith in the security team?
Sources: computerworld
MSNTECH