Twitter Hacked, Secrets to Be Revealed?
Alleged internal documents and sensitive information from Twitter and its employees might be posted today on news sites and other Web outlets. The source of this information is a French hacker who goes by the name of Hacker Croll. The cybercriminal claims to have accessed personally sensitive information for several Twitter employees including personal accounts on PayPal, Amazon, AT&T, MobileMe, Facebook, business Gmail accounts, and the Web registrar account for Twitter.com, according to the French blog Korben.
Wed, July 15, 2009
PC World — Alleged internal documents and sensitive information from Twitter and its employees might be posted today on news sites and other Web outlets.
Twitter Bible: Everything You Need To Know About Twitter
The source of this information is a French hacker who goes by the name of Hacker Croll.
The cybercriminal claims to have accessed personally sensitive information for several Twitter employees including personal accounts on PayPal, Amazon, AT&T, MobileMe, Facebook, business Gmail accounts, and the Web registrar account for Twitter.com, according to the French blog Korben.
Hacker Croll has also distributed some alleged internal documents to news sites and blogs, including a complete Twitter employee list and salary information; food preferences of Twitter employees; confidential contracts with companies such as Nokia, Samsung, Dell, AOL, Microsoft, and others; a contact list of notable Web and entertainment personalities; meeting reports; applicant resumes; and the original pitch for the infamous Twitter TV show.
After the news of the security breach became public, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams was contacted by TechCrunch to confirm the document theft.
Williams reportedly confirmed that Twitter did suffer an attack several weeks ago, but the event was not related to the attack in April when a hacker gained access to several high-profile user accounts and Twitter's administrative functions.
The April hack was also committed by a cybercriminal going by the name of Hacker Croll. Williams told TC the company is familiar with the list of information Hacker Croll obtained, and countered some of the hacker's claims.
The Twitter co-founder confirmed the hacker gained access to his wife's Gmail account -- where some of Williams's credit card information was stored -- as well as an administrative employee's Gmail account and a number of personal accounts of other Twitter employees.
Williams says Hacker Croll did not gain access to William's Gmail account, and that Twitter has now taken further security measures to guard company property and internal documents.
Journalistic Dilemma Things became more complicated when Hacker Croll e-mailed a compressed file of 310 alleged internal Twitter documents directly to TechCrunch.
The blog says it spent some time reviewing the information, and intends to publish some of the documents they obtained over the course of the day on Wednesday.
TC founder Michael Arrington says the site will not publish any sensitive information such as pass codes or personally embarrassing information; however, TC will publish a variety of alleged documents including "financial projections, product plans and notes from executive strategy meetings," and the original pitch for Twitter's reality based television show.
