Comments on: Phishers target Twitter http://lastwatchdog.com/phishers-target-twitter/ on Internet security by Byron Acohido Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:38:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Graham Cluley, Sophos http://lastwatchdog.com/phishers-target-twitter/#comment-92 Graham Cluley, Sophos Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:56:19 +0000 http://zerodaythreat.com/?p=170#comment-92 It turns out that Britney Spears, Rick Sanchez et al, did nothing wrong and weren't phished for their account details. Instead they were the innocent victims of a security problem at Twitter, where one of their staff had chosen a dictionary word as her password, and so hackers were able to brute-force their way in. Using a dictionary word is never a good idea, as explained in an "amusing" video here: http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/01/14/breaking-twitter-accounts-dictionary-password-attack/ It turns out that Britney Spears, Rick Sanchez et al, did nothing wrong and weren’t phished for their account details.

Instead they were the innocent victims of a security problem at Twitter, where one of their staff had chosen a dictionary word as her password, and so hackers were able to brute-force their way in.

Using a dictionary word is never a good idea, as explained in an “amusing” video here:

http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/01/14/breaking-twitter-accounts-dictionary-password-attack/

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