Twitter Gets Hacked, Badly

From Tech Crunch:
Phishing attacks, which hit Twitter over the weekend, are a sign a service has arrived Facebook has the same problem). But someone hacking into Twitter’s internal admin tools and compromising 33 high profile accounts, including President Elect Barack Obama, has Twitter users freaking out about what to do.

Here is Twitter’s official explanation:

This morning we discovered 33 Twitter accounts had been “hacked” including prominent Twitter-ers like Rick Sanchez and Barack Obama (who has not been Twittering since becoming the president elect due to transition issues). We immediately locked down the accounts and investigated the issue. Rick, Barack, and others are now back in control of their accounts.

What Happened?

The issue with these 33 accounts is different from the Phishing scam aimed at Twitter users this weekend. These accounts were compromised by an individual who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses to help people do things like edit the email address associated with their Twitter account when they can’t remember or get stuck. We considered this a very serious breach of security and immediately took the support tools offline. We’ll put them back only when they’re safe and secure.

Read the rest here.

I got a suspect tweet yesterday. It came direct to my phone, so I knew something was wrong. Here is more from twitter on the scam they were caught in.

This is a reminder to all using social media--but more importantly for advocates of social media. It's critical that advocates keep up with the "news" and status of the new favorite tools. Early adopters need to be aware of the risks and be the ones to bring it up.

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[Finally, I hope that this isn't the thing that makes Scott owe me $5.]