Twitter Warns Some Users Of Possible ‘Government’ Hacking

                          Twitter warns some users of possible ‘government’ hacking.

The microblogging service sent emails to an unknown number of users warning that hackers may be trying to obtain phone numbers, email addresses and IP addresses, according to Twitter users who have received the emails.

The emails warn that while Twitter is not certain recipients’ personal information was obtained, it has reason to believe they were intended targets.

“At this time, we have no evidence they obtained your account information, but we’re actively investigating this matter,” according to Coldhak, a Canada-based nonprofit organization that posted a copy of the letter it received on Twitter. “We wish we had more we could share, but we don’t have any additional information we can provide at this time.”

A nonprofit organization in Canada posted to Twitter this email it received from the company.

The emails go on to advise users to take proper precautions to safeguard their personal information, including offering a link to information on Tor, software that allows for anonymous communication on the Internet. Others who tweeted about having received the warning included security researchers and journalists.

A spokesman for San Francisco-based Twitter confirmed the authenticity of the emails but declined to provide further comment.

The warning, like similar ones issued previously by Facebook and Google, underscore the growing frequency of state-sponsored hacks, typically used to steal government information or intellectual property. China and the US have for years traded accusations of high-tech espionage, while a massive hack last year that crippled Sony Entertainment and revealed the inner workings of the studio was traced by the FBI back to hackers working for the North Korea government.

Social media in particular has become a more popular battlefield for hackers in recent years. The Syrian Electronic Army, a hacking group that supports the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has claimed responsibility for several hacks of news sites and company Web sites. The group has hacked into the Twitter account of the parody news site the Onion and it also has gotten into the accounts of the Associated Press , NPR, CBS, the Guardian, and the BBC.

Last month, the hacker collective Anonymous declared war on the Islamic militant group ISIS, saying it wants to steal information from that Web traffic and force ISIS into Internet obscurity. ISIS has used the Internet to recruit new members from around the world and to spread chilling images of executions and other violence.

Twitter has sent warnings to a number of users that their accounts may have been hacked by “state-sponsored actors”.

It is the first time that the social media company has issued such a warning.

Twitter emailed users to say that the hackers may have sought their email or IP addresses, or phone numbers, which it recently began collecting.

The number of accounts affected by the suspected hack is unclear.

Coldhak, a Canadian non-profit organisation, said it had received a warning from Twitter.

“We believe that these actors (possibly associated with a government) may have been trying to obtain information such as email addresses, IP addresses, and/or phone numbers,” the email stated.

“At this time, we have no evidence they obtained your account information, but we’re actively investigating this matter. We wish we had more we could share, but we don’t have any additional information we can provide at this time.”

The Chinese and North Korean governments are thought to be responsible for some cyber hacking of western companies and governments.

Some IT experts say the hackers who breached Sony’s computer network late last year and leaked huge amounts of confidential information were backed by the North Korean state.

Pyongyang has consistently denied involvement in the security breach.

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, said that government-backed attackers have far greater resources at their disposal than criminal hacker gangs.

They may be able to use other measures such as human agents or communications intercepts to successfully bypass any security measures, he said.

>>Source: CNET & BBC

>>Image:  Twitter