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My Twitter account -- @yes -- just got hacked. Can anyone help?

33 points by zaru ↗ HN
I already submitted all the forms on Twitter.com to recover the account but I have no idea if that will get through. The hacker already wiped the account clean. Anybody know what I should do?

18 comments

[ 52.8 ms ] story [ 916 ms ] thread
OGinparadise
You made it to HN front page so help from twitter is probably on the way.

On the same topic: How do these accounts (including email) get hacked? Does brute force work even with max number of failed logins or what?

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zaru
My email was not hacked but the Twitter account was compromised.
[dead] t1
What was the password (in terms of what it contained)? Was the password more like 'baseball' or 'B@s3B41122984'? It's possible that someone has the copyright or convinced support they were you if the password is indeed complex. You can contact twitter support. https://twitter.com/crystal
meric
t1's dead post: What was the password (in terms of what it contained)? Was the password more like 'baseball' or 'B@s3B41122984'? It's possible that someone has the copyright or convinced support they were you if the password is indeed complex. You can contact twitter support. https://twitter.com/crystal -----
cynix
Of course, we don't know if zaru is actually the rightful owner of the account. He could be trying to convince us (and Twitter support) in an attempt to take over the account...
axelfreeman
I think and hope that twitter has a history of changes in the account. So that they can find the takeover.
zaru
Understandable remark cynix but I am definitely @yes. You can ask any of my friends and followers. I do believe they keep the history of your user account, my biggest concern is recovering my account now that the hacker removed all my person info from it.
IvyMike
Simple brute force won't work against any but the most naive sites.

A lot of accounts are hacked through exploiting weaknesses in the "I forgot my password" secondary login method.

aw3c2
please do not encourage doing "instead of waiting for the reply from Twitter support I will post on HN too" posts. this is just noise, nothing interesting.
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Xanza
"By default, you can initiate a password reset by entering only your @username. If you check this box, you will be prompted to enter your email address or phone number if you forget your password."

If you're able to get back your account, enable the "Require personal information to reset my password" option in the twitter account settings. Because you didn't have this option enabled, when your email was compromised all's they had to do was know your twitter username and do a password reset by email.

xSwag
How do you know that your PC was not compromised?
zaru
Good question xSwag, I suppose I don't. I clicked the wrong link in an email.
zaru
Good news everyone, my account has been fully restored. Special thanks to the Twitter support guardian angels.
merinid
My twitter account got hacked, but i did not comlain on HN. I really should have. Even though i got through to support (i have a friend who worka at twitter who referred me), they claimed that my email address was not the one associated with the twitter account. Well guess what, when you msg or add me to your feed, those notificationa come straight to my inbox. The only thing that doesn't reach my email account (standard gmail) is a password reset link . So annoying. I've been bouncing back with support for weeks.