Earlier this week, LeakedSource who maintained a database that allows users to search for leaked online credentials has revealed that it managed to obtained Twitter usernames, passwords, and email addresses for almost 33 million users. With majority of these affected users are likely to be from Russia based on their email domains, the organization believed that the leak was not due to a security breach at Twitter itself.
Instead, these credentials might have come from users that have been affected by malware which helped send saved usernames and passwords within a web browser back to hackers. In other words, the credentials were siphoned out from users themselves without the involvement of Twitter.
Twitter has since worked together with LeakedSource to address the issues and has identified users that are affected by it. Such users will then be asked to reset their password before they are allowed to continue using Twitter.
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While the popular social network company didn’t exactly reveal the exact amount of affected users, it has confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that millions of users have been notified to change their password. At the same time, the Twitter also believed that its systems were not hacked which is in line with LeakedSource’s original report.
With that, it seems like now might be a good time to rest your Twitter’s password regardless of whether you are affected by the leak or otherwise. Better to be safe than sorry.
(Source: LeakedSource, Twitter, Michael Coates, The Wall Street Journal)
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