There is a nasty attack going on the Twitter website currently. I was hit with it along with what appears to be at least thousands of other users. Mike Butcher at Techcrunchuk suggests that the security flaw is only hitting Twitter.com and not the third-party clients. After I was hit, I tried using Seesmic Web and it wouldn’t load so I am guessing if you want to switch, you must follow the instructions below first as my guess is the javascript onmouseover code is somehow killing the API…
It does appear if you have the New Twitter interface (which is like 100 tech bloggers and Twitter friends), you are safe.
If you have been hit with the security bug/flaw – here’s how to fix it quickly and easily:
- Go to Twitter’s mobile site and login
- Go to your user page
- Delete the bad virus tweets
- It may take a minute for your Twitter account to appear clean
After you have cleaned the bad tweets, make sure not to mouse over any links in the Twitter.com interface. And just to be safe, change your password.
Apparently the third party client tools for accessing Twitter are not affected by this bug – so if you need to Tweet that pic of your dog, that you just ate a ham sandwich or that you have just completed a check-in at the Borders, check out Tweetdeck, Brizzly or Seesmic.
Update: Brad at Next Web was able to get some additional information on how the hack works.
Leave a comment if your Twitter account was hit with this hot mess.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Twitter Security Flaw – HOW TO FIX
