Twacked: When Twitter Accounts Get Hacked
As of January 2010, Twitter has banned 370 passwords from being used because they were too obvious. Over a year later in July of 2011, Twitter increased that to 401 passwords members are not allowed to use.
Example of Banned Passwords on Twitter
• 000000
• Baseball
• Eagles
• Freedom
• Password
• Helpme
• Whatever
• Yamaha
• Richard
• Stupid
Prior to the ban, “123456” was the most commonly used password on Twitter.
Most Popular Means Most Hacked?
It is no surprise that even some of the most followed Twitter pages have seen hacks of their own. Here is a look at some of the top accounts on Twitter.
• @ladygaga – last hacked Apr 27, 2011
• @justinbieber – last hacked Jul 27, 2010
• @barackobama – last hacked Jan 05, 2009
• @katyperry – last hacked Jan 29, 2010
• @kimkardashian – last hacked Apr 01, 2011
Most Memorable Moments
After someone hacked into Justin Bieber’s friends Twitter account and got Bieber’s phone number, Bieber got the hacker’s phone number and tweeted it to his 4.5 million followers. As a result, the hacker received over 26,000 text messages.
Ashton Kutcher @aplush became the first Twitter user to reach 1 million followers.
A group calling themselves “The Script Kiddie” hacked NBC News Twitter account via a Trojan delivered through a malicious email attachment and tweeted out false reports of an attack on Ground Zero two days before the 10th anniversary. The same group took credit for posting that President Obama was assassinated on July 03 via Fox News Twitter account. The Script Kiddie was also responsible for hacking USA Today’s Twitter account asking people to follow them so they could conduct a survey to determine their next target.
Be sure to look after your own self when posting on Twitter. Does the memorable moment of Congressman Weinergate accidentally posting a lewd photo of himself on Twitter ring a bell?
The last memorable moment is Twitter’s own hack in Jan of 2009 where 33 accounts were hacked after their internal admin tools were compromised.
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