Twitter gets hacked. Why you need to care.

 

by Ron Daly 

BREAKING NEWS! Fox News has outed Bill O'Reilly, Rick Sanchez at CNN is addicted to crack and Britney Spears...well, the less said the better.

Obvioulsy, ALL THESE CLAIMS ARE FALSE. We have a hacker to thank for all these tidbits, which came from the fount of Internet knowledge: Twitter. 

Yes, Twitter. Folks these days don't know whether to call it a micro-blog or an instant messenger. But they do know, now, that there's a major security hole somewhere through which someone drove a bus (click here to read the story). 

Some of the biggest Twitterers (Tweeters? Tweets? Toots? Honestly, Jimmy's the one who keeps up with this stuff) were hit, including President-Elect Barack Obama, Britney Spears, Fox News and CNN Anchor Rick Sanchez. 

As someone who spends a lot of time talking about online security, I wondered whether or not this was all that news-worthy. Most twitter pages are just little blurbs about what people are doing, links to their favorite news stories, jokes back and forth with friends, etc. But then I read this article from NetworkWorld.com (read the article here). 

What would have happened if this hacker - who just threw out humiliating little gibes - had posted links to a virus? What if he'd have used email addresses or passwords he'd found to disturb people's private accounts on non-Twitter services? Does this tell you, dear reader, anything about how important it is to guard passwords? 

Jimmy and I jawboned about this for a little while. I asked what he thought was the biggest threat facing Twitter and he told me that there are so many peripheral Twitter applications that require username and password to operate. Seems like a tough sell for me, the thought of giving away security information. What do you think, folks? Respond below.

Comments

[Jeffry Pilcher]

Micro-blogging or instant messaging? I say it's instant messaging, just like AOL's AIM, only you don't have to be logged-in 100% of the time to get all your messages.

[Elliott]

Think of the number of people who use one username and password for multiple sign in screens. Expand that to people who use just a couple, and multiple derivations of each. The second group includes just about everyone.

For those hacking into Twitter (with more malevolent intentions), getting sign in information for those peripheral applications would be a clear step two. Having even a small sample of common usernames and passwords used by a single individual could provide access to a huge number of sites, containing other private information.

I'd say twittering is more like micro blogging. Usually, if I'm on AIM or another instant messaging program, I am engaging in a conversation, which I don't see happening much on twitter.

[Jimmy Marks]

Elliott -

I totally agree with the sentiment of "security is issue 1". Because it's absolutely true. As I wrote weeks ago, people don't use the right amount of caution with their passwords online which makes them more of a target.

And I say this with utmost respect: you don't think of Twitter as a conversation because you don't use it. You ever start communipunching with the rest of us (that's a term I came up with to replace "tweeting", which sounds stupid), you'll be conversating, too.

[Elliott]

I've had a twitter account and follow multiple feeds, but I do not "tweet." By conversation, I was more referring to the real-time aspect of communication. For example, you could technically call a blog post and multiple comments a conversation, but it's certainly not the same kind of live conversation that takes place in via instant messenger.

[Ron Shevlin]

Why must it be one or the other? Can it not be both? And what difference does it really make? I'm going back to work now.