When My Twitter Account Was Hacked
Posted: Sunday, July 03, 2011
by Joel Kontinen
http://joelkontinen.blogspot.com/
Social networking sites are valuable assets, at least for a blogger. However, last week I learnt the hard way that we can never be too careful about them.
Perhaps it was just laziness, but I chose a very short password for my Twitter account when I joined the site a few years ago. (In contrast, my Facebook password is so complicated that I occasionally have to check whether I have written it correctly.) Anyhow, it seems that hackers found out the password by trial and error and soon they were sending messages to my followers in my name. It seems that I unwittingly became a Viagra salesman, or at least linked to a site that sold all kinds of questionable medicaments.
While it was not very serious, it was a source of embarrassment. The messages the hackers sent used rather poor grammar, for instance writing “I” with a lower case “i”. For a translator like me, suggesting that I don’t know how to write properly is one of the worst insults.
And I’m not too fond of being branded a spammer, either.
I have always assessed my Twitter account from my laptop, with just one exception. While on a short vacation in Spain, I used the hotel’s computer. That might well have been the occasion for the leak.
So, the least I can do for my many Twitter followers who might have received a questionable message from "me" last week and are reading this article is to apologize for not being more careful.
Yes, I am sorry.
In order to avoid the embarrassment that I had to live through, it would probably be good to observe four simple guidelines:
- Don’t use too short and transparent passwords.
- Change your password often.
- Do not access your Twitter account from a computer /phone that is not yours.
- Be careful with services that allow you to post links on Twitter. They might leak your password to others.
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This Article has been viewed 622 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)While you may be a Viagra salesman but I have become a Viagra customer which of course is not true. I ignore all the spam mails. They make me so tired. I guess hackers are everywhere.Thanks, Hilda. And we're not the only ones. I once got a message from a "Mr. Ban Ki-moon" who, using a g-mail account, said I had won several thousand dollars in a lottery I never took part in. He wanted some personal details first, of course.
Great article! Very informativeThanks. The experience was not great, though.
Nice tips to give, I can't stand hackers. Thanks for writing this article I enjoyed it. I was hacked someone tried to take over one of my affiliate accounts.Thanks. I can't guarantee that the tips will prevent all hackers but they should reduce the risk of hacking.
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