Lame Password behind Twitter Hack
PrintA hacker who uses the pseudonym GMZ accepted responsibility for the recent Twitter hack in an IM interview to Threat Level on Tuesday. He divulged little personal details except that he is an 18-year old student on the East Coast. It is also known that he is a member of the online forum for hackers called Digital Gangster; forum members had claimed that GMZ was responsible for the hack even before the hacker owned up.
He revealed that he successfully gained access to the account of a female Twitter staffer named “Crystal.” He had serendipitously stumbled upon her account and had no idea that she was a Twitter staff member with administrative control. He then proceeded to hack her account using a dictionary attack.
The program didn’t have to break a sweat as she was using the password “happiness.” Her flimsy password coupled with Twitter’s primeval security, which allows rapid-fire log-in attempts, led to several high profile Twitter accounts, including the ones belonging to President-elect Barack Obama and Fox News, being compromised.
Image Credit: Zdnet
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maxwellD
December 16, 2010 at 12:56am
Hacking really is a major problem of all people who have social networking site accounts. Those who like sharing many stuff online should be very careful because we don't know when this hackers will attack. If you believe the hype, açaí berries are miracle fruits, with tons of antioxidant benefits. Scientific studies and Twitter users have both found the tales to be more spam than anything. Twitter users by the thousands have been hit by the ad spam assault known as “ acainews,” writes Mashable. Based on reports, over 10,000 unauthorized tweets have been posted about acai berries and their intended magic.
Dresh
January 08, 2009 at 8:51am
Why does this not surprise me, it's ubeleivable what people use for thier passwords. On a second note who the hell uses twitter anyway? there's more important things to be doing with your time/life other than posting WTF your up to all the time... sheesh.
The Relic
January 07, 2009 at 12:41pm
Unbelievable...reminds me of the retailer I used to work for (now closed); they set up a login/password system on their computer that has the sales/inventory records. I was not given either (oversight, since they knew I needed unfettered access to those records to do my job). Well, the boss was late, and the store needed to open and be ready to receive inventory, so I mention this to HR. No, she didn't have it either.
So I sat down, and within two tries, I had the computer logged on and happily doing my job. The login? Her title (mgr) and the password? The store's designation (st101). Again, revealing the login/password is not a problem since, not only is the company no longer around, my actual store is now a grassy lot, having been torn down earlier last year. But yeah, one thing I can count on is that a company will have at least one clueless manager.
And no, she didn't care about how easy it was when we told her how easy it was to crack. Didn't even change the password ^_^.
neo1piv14
January 07, 2009 at 11:59am
Wow, for an internet company, that's just inexcusable. Where I work, our passwords get audited on a monthly basis with dictionary brute force attacks to see if they can be broken that easily. What would be wrong with say...making users have numbers, different cases, and special characters?
Azruelli
January 07, 2009 at 8:09am
I like twitter, but I really think it's foolish to not enforce a semi-protective password.
Also, Lol@cnn reporter high on crack.
Dunimas
January 07, 2009 at 7:46am
Twitter should higher smarter employees or at least enforce a password policy that requires letters and numbers in order to protect itself. You'd think an web-based company would have that under control.
::.Dunimas.::
Velcrow
January 07, 2009 at 11:11am
Not sure 'smarter' employees is the right way to put it. There are plenty of naive or technologically ignorant people out there. I blame the company. There should be a strict password enforcement. Employee's are always a security liability, the company has to set the right foundation to ensure proper security is maintained.
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