Social media giant Twitter is among the latest U.S. companies to acknowledge that it is among a growing list of victims of Internet security attacks, saying that hackers may have gained access to information on 250,000 of its more than 200 million active users. And now, The Washington Post is joining the chorus, saying that it discovered that it was the target of a sophisticated cyberattack in 2011.
Twitter said a blog post on Friday it detected attempts to gain access to its user data earlier in the week. It shut down one attack moments after it was detected.
But Twitter discovered that the attackers may have stolen user names, email addresses and encrypted passwords belonging to 250,000 users they describe as ‘a very small percentage of our users.”
Nonetheless, the company reset the pilfered passwords and sent emails advising the affected users.
Read also:
Twitter Hit by Cyber Attack (Voice of America)
Twitter: Hackers hit 250000 accounts (USA TODAY)
Twitter Says Hackers May Have Stolen User Data in Attack (Businessweek)
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