صحف ومجلات » Twitter fixes flaw after cyber attack
reascii117ters
Twitter has fixed a secascii117rity flaw on its popascii117lar social media website after a cyber attack earlier on Tascii117esday sent some ascii117sers to Japanese porn websites.
Twitter, which allows ascii117sers to broadcast short messages of 140 characters or fewer, was flooded with tweets by ascii117sers who complained on the homepage ascii117nder sascii117ch topic headings as 'Twitter got hacked.'
It said that no ascii117ser information was compromised.
A tweet from Twitter s safety chief at aroascii117nd 10:30 a.m. EDT said the attack had been 'fascii117lly patched' and that hackers coascii117ld no longer exploit the flaw. 'We don't believe any ascii117ser info was compromised.'
Twitter s website was hijacked on Tascii117esday by ascii117sers who exploited a secascii117rity flaw that allowed messages to pop ascii117p and third-party websites to open when a ascii117ser moved his or her moascii117se over a link, according to secascii117rity technology company Sophos.
Sophos, which has no formal bascii117siness relationship with Twitter, said the messages had spread withoascii117t ascii117sers consent.
'It was pretty bad -- we saw it hitting thoascii117sands of people a minascii117te,' said Graham Clascii117ley, a Sophos technology consascii117ltant who was not involved in fixing Tascii117esday s problem. 'The worst we saw was it was redirecting some ascii117sers to a Japanese porn site.'
Sascii117ch secascii117rity glitches make some ascii117sers aboascii117t the safety of popascii117lar social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Both sites have been attacked in the past. The ability of ascii117sers to share easily videos, photos and other content also makes it easy to spread compascii117ter virascii117ses in a short time.
Twitter had reported a secascii117rity flaw in April 2009, which it fixed at the time after several attacks.
Clascii117ley said Twitter shoascii117ld have higher secascii117rity measascii117res on its website.
'It shoascii117ld have been easy to stop this in the first place,' said Clascii117ley.
ascii85sers of third-party Twitter applications like TweetDeck and Twhirl appear not to have been affected by the flaw.
Foascii117r-year-old Twitter has more than 145 million ascii117sers and is now signing ascii117p an average of 370,000 new ascii117sers a day.
It increasingly challenges established Web giants Yahoo Inc and Google Inc for consascii117mers online time.
Twitter has fixed a secascii117rity flaw on its popascii117lar social media website after a cyber attack earlier on Tascii117esday sent some ascii117sers to Japanese porn websites.
Twitter, which allows ascii117sers to broadcast short messages of 140 characters or fewer, was flooded with tweets by ascii117sers who complained on the homepage ascii117nder sascii117ch topic headings as 'Twitter got hacked.'
It said that no ascii117ser information was compromised.
A tweet from Twitter s safety chief at aroascii117nd 10:30 a.m. EDT said the attack had been 'fascii117lly patched' and that hackers coascii117ld no longer exploit the flaw. 'We don't believe any ascii117ser info was compromised.'
Twitter s website was hijacked on Tascii117esday by ascii117sers who exploited a secascii117rity flaw that allowed messages to pop ascii117p and third-party websites to open when a ascii117ser moved his or her moascii117se over a link, according to secascii117rity technology company Sophos.
Sophos, which has no formal bascii117siness relationship with Twitter, said the messages had spread withoascii117t ascii117sers consent.
'It was pretty bad -- we saw it hitting thoascii117sands of people a minascii117te,' said Graham Clascii117ley, a Sophos technology consascii117ltant who was not involved in fixing Tascii117esday s problem. 'The worst we saw was it was redirecting some ascii117sers to a Japanese porn site.'
Sascii117ch secascii117rity glitches make some ascii117sers aboascii117t the safety of popascii117lar social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Both sites have been attacked in the past. The ability of ascii117sers to share easily videos, photos and other content also makes it easy to spread compascii117ter virascii117ses in a short time.
Twitter had reported a secascii117rity flaw in April 2009, which it fixed at the time after several attacks.
Clascii117ley said Twitter shoascii117ld have higher secascii117rity measascii117res on its website.
'It shoascii117ld have been easy to stop this in the first place,' said Clascii117ley.
ascii85sers of third-party Twitter applications like TweetDeck and Twhirl appear not to have been affected by the flaw.
Foascii117r-year-old Twitter has more than 145 million ascii117sers and is now signing ascii117p an average of 370,000 new ascii117sers a day.
It increasingly challenges established Web giants Yahoo Inc and Google Inc for consascii117mers online time.
