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Dozens of High Profile Twitter Accounts Hacked

by Terrence O'Brien on January 6, 2009 at 05:28 PM

Dozens of High Profile Twitter Accounts Hacked
In a breach of security completely separate from yesterday's phishing scam warnings, someone broke into Twitter's systems and hijacked a number of high profile accounts, including those for Britney Spears, Fox News, and Barack Obama.

The Twitter security crew acted quickly by taking down the affected systems and only restoring them once the hole had been identified and plugged and control for the hacked accounts returned to the proper owners. Of course, that wasn't before a barrage of messages were let loose from the hacker(s). Most were standard spam and phishing scam links, but a few demonstrated the attackers had a bit of a sense of humor, and we admit to having a good chuckle at Fox News's breaking story that conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly was in fact gay.

Check out the read links for more info on the nature of the attack and some more entertaining quips from the hackers about Rick Sanchez's crack habit and the size of Britney Spears' private parts. [From: Tech Crunch, Twitter Blog, and Silicon Alley Insider]

Tags: hack, hackers, hacking, phishing, security, spam, top, Twitter

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