The internet received another reminder that no one is immune from hackers today when Twitter’s homepage was once again hacked.
Electric Pig summed up the attack as follows:
The Twitter homepage has been taken over by gigantic letters, blacked out tweets and malevolent rainbow messages. An exploit that allows tweets to use the ‘onMouseOver” JavaScript command is behind the problem. If you visit Twitter.com and haven’t got new Twitter yet, moving your mouse over those tweets automatically reposts messages or redirects you to other websites.
This, of course, led to a lot of Twitter chaos with feeds being full of retweets and links to weird and wacky sites, including porn sites. Third party apps weren’t affected, giving users even more reason to find an escape from Twitter’s horrid website interface. Tweeters reacted with a mix of humour and panic, with many – including myself – comparing third party apps to contraception against Twitter’s metaphorical STI’s.
The chaos didn’t last long though, as Twitter fixed the problem within a few hours. Even so, these hacks should serve as a reminder that no website, no matter how big or small, is immune to hacks, and it’s probably worth looking into a few security measures for those sites most important to you.
Related Articles
- Techie advice of the day: Twitter.com has been hacked (michellemalkin.com)
- Twitter Virus Hack Affecting Thousands of Users (blippitt.com)
- Twitter hacked, sending users to third-party sites (msnbc.msn.com)
