Twitter accounts of ABC News and Good Morning America were targeted by hackers this morning. Tweets filled with profanity and false news reports were posted to the ABC News account, while tweets claiming to be from “Russian hackers” who “love” President Donald Trump were appearing on Good Morning America’s page. IT security experts from NuData Security and Alert Logic commented below.
Robert Capps, VP of Business Development at NuData Security:
“If Twitter were a country, it would be the 12th largest in the world with over 100 million users logging in daily, and continually growing. The size of its membership, and its capacity as a live media source of information, make it an attractive and vulnerable target for account takeovers. By hijacking accounts, bad actors have access the audiences of celebrities, brands and news outlets with thousands of followers, and can also leverage hashtags and lists to push that reach further. It’s a reminder for everyone to use unique strong passwords on every site, and consider using a password manager like 1Password or LastPass for easy generation of strong, unique passwords, as well as storage and encryption of these passwords.”
Paul Fletcher, Cybersecurity Evangelist at Alert Logic:
“The practice of hacking Twitter accounts to gain notoriety for a cause is similar to a web defacement hack. Hacking groups like the variety of audiences they can reach by hacking a varied array of Twitter accounts, like we see in this latest attack. Social media accounts should practice good password management practices to prevent being attacked.”
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