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Russian Hacker Claims He Has 32 Million Twitter Accounts, Co-founder Hacked

Co-founder Evan Williams Twitter Account Hacked
NEW YORK, NY - MAY 07: Cofounder of Medium and Twitter Evan Williams speaks at the WIRED Business Conference: Think Bigger at Museum of Jewish Heritage on May 7, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images for WIRED)
Brad Barket via Getty Images
NEW YORK, NY - MAY 07: Cofounder of Medium and Twitter Evan Williams speaks at the WIRED Business Conference: Think Bigger at Museum of Jewish Heritage on May 7, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images for WIRED)

This hasn't been the best week for Twitter. First, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's twitter account was hacked by a group called OurMine and the security breach made news the world over. Now, the same hacker outfit has claimed that Twitter co-founder Evan Williams' account was also hacked briefly before being restored.

Reports suggest that a Russian hacker claims to have details of over 32 million Twitter accounts with him, including usernames and their passwords. These records are being sold on the so called 'Dark Web', which basically refers to illegal and hidden online communication channels. The report in Techcrunch said that a search engine for leaked accounts called LeakedSource got a copy of the Twitter account details.

A LeakedSource blog says that the leaked Twitter data contains 32,888,300 records, including email addresses, usernames, and passwords. It has confirmed the authenticity of the data by verifying users' passwords with them.

"A number of other online services have seen millions of passwords stolen in the past several weeks. We recommend people use a unique, strong password for Twitter," a Twitter official said.

Several celebrity Twitter accounts have been hacked of late. Celebrity Kylie Jenner's twitter account was also taken over on the day Zuckerberg's account was hacked, Other hacked celebrity accounts include the NFL (the American National Football League) account, and those of musicians Lana del Rey and Drake. . Singer Katy Perry's account was hacked towards the end of May and rock band Tame Impala's account was hacked some days ago.

While Twitter claims that all these hacks were performed just by the reuse of passwords from a 2012 LinkedIn leak, the microblogging network clearly needs to strengthen its security, all the more urgently perhaps in light of the news that Snapchat has taken over Twitter in terms of Daily Active Users (DAUs).

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