Home » Twitter Counter Hack Lets Nazi Spam Hijack Twitter Accounts

Twitter Counter Hack Lets Nazi Spam Hijack Twitter Accounts

Alushta, Russia - November 21, 2014: Man holding a iPhone 6 Space Gray with social networking service Twitter on the screen. iPhone 6 was created and developed by the Apple inc.

A hack on the third-party Twitter tool called Twitter Counter has resulted in Nazi spam on high-profile accounts. Twitter Counter has acknowledged that “our service was hacked” and that it has “taken measures to contain such abuse.”

“Assuming this abuse is indeed done using our system, we’ve blocked all ability to post tweets and changed our Twitter app key,” it said. “The Twitter Counter application is blocked on Twitter. If this activity continues, then we strongly believe it’s not just through us.”

Twitter Counter

Twitter Counter is a statistics and analytics service; the company says it does not store Twitter account credentials or credit card information. The breach, however, did allow the hackers to post on the feeds of those who previously linked their Twitter accounts to Twitter Counter. A similar incident occurred in November.

“Some people on Twitter speculated that maybe I had clicked on a dodgy link, or foolishly not followed my own advice to ensure that Login Verifications was enabled on my account,” Cluley wrote in a blog post. “But no, I hadn’t clicked on any dodgy links (I’d been up in a plane with no data!), and of course I protect every online account I can with two-factor authentication or two-step verification.”

Instead, “I gave Twitter Counter access to my account in October 2014, and that clearly was a decision I now regret,” he wrote. “Twitter Counter requests read *and* write access to your Twitter account, in order to do its jiggery pokery counting your Twitter followers,” he continued. “Why it would need write access, unless it is planning its own self-promotion, I can’t say.”

Twitter is pointing people to its support website, which recommends that people “be cautious before giving third-party applications access to your account [and] review third-party applications that have access to your account from time to time.”

To revoke access to an app, sign into your account on Twitter.com, click your profile photo on the top right and select Settings & privacy > Apps. There you can see all the apps that are linked to your account; click to remove those you no longer use or want.

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