socialmedian: Weak Password Brings 'Happiness' to Twitter Hacker

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Breaking Noose: Weak Passwords Suck By jasongoldberg

Jan 07, 2009

Twit hack made possible by poor passwords. Personal security in 2.0 By esd714

Jan 07, 2009

Hackers Hiring 4th Graders, Apply @sweetrevenge By daynamarcum

Jan 07, 2009

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Weak Password Brings 'Happiness' to Twitter Hacker | Threat Level from Wired.com

Source: Wired: Threat Level

Jan 07, 2009

Summary

An 18-year-old hacker with a history of celebrity pranks has admitted to Monday's hijacking of multiple high-profile Twitter accounts, including President-Elect Barack Obama's, and the official feed for Fox News.
The hacker, who goes by the handle GMZ, told Threat Level on Tuesday he gained entry to Twitter's administrative control panel by pointing an automated password-guesser at a popular user's account. The user turned out to be a member of Twitter's support staff, who'd chosen the weak password

Comments (6)

Isaacaggrey,

Jan 07, 2009

"Security in the web 2.0 world is pretty nonexistent."

I thought the above comment at the Wired.com link put it quite nicely.

@jasongoldberg Hopefully, s|m doesn't allow an unlimited number of rapid-fire log-in attempts. =)

Esd714,

Jan 07, 2009

You would think password security would be something pretty core to someone on the support side @twitter, right?

Tonemega,

Jan 07, 2009

"Your password shouldn't contain no less than 17 characters of numbers and letters. And you shouldn't use the same password for every web account."
Why waste my time, people still use weak passwords for all their web accounts.

Brucevittetoe,

Jan 07, 2009

I am surprised that the young person is so open about being the one who hacked the account. I realize that gaining the attention is part of the thrill, but it also seems they would be worried of the repercussions. The article stated that the hacker did not hide their IP address during the attack. I have no idea about the law and am wondering if Twitter would need to press charges for this person to get into trouble. Maybe we will find out soon enough.