Twitter's latest security hole has less to do with its users than it does with its staff, but lessons can be learned on both sides.
In the case of Jason Goldman, who is currently Twitter's director of product management, the simplicity of Yahoo's password recovery system was enough to let a hacker get in and gain information from a number of other sites, including access to other Twitter staff's personal accounts.
The aftermath of the hack, which took place in May, is just now coming to fruition. Documents that a hacker by the alias of Hacker Croll recovered from Goldman's account and others (including Twitter co-founder Evan Williams) could be a treasure trove of inside information about the company and its plans.
While Croll was planning to release the entire batch publicly (and at once), tech blog TechCrunch posted news late Tuesday that it had received them and was considering posting the details of at least some of them.
Although it seems that Twitter has been thrust into this situation a bit unfairly, a hack along these lines could have happened to the executives of more Web companies than anybody would like to admit. What it really highlights is the extreme interconnectedness of the social Web: with the likes of e-mail contact importing and data-portability services like Facebook Connect now commonplace, a savvy hacker can have access to multiple accounts simply by accessing one.
A post Wednesday on Twitter's official blog highlights just how far-reaching this can be.
"About a month ago, an administrative employee here at Twitter was targeted and her personal email account was hacked," the post from co-founder Biz Stone read. "From the personal account, we believe the hacker was able to gain information which allowed access to this employee's Google Apps account which contained Docs, Calendars, and other Google Apps Twitter relies on for sharing notes, spreadsheets, ideas, financial details and more within the company."
Following that attack, Twitter conducted a security audit, and Stone's post says that there was not a security vulnerability in Google Apps and that Twitter continues to use the suite internally. A separate hack targeted the account of CEO Evan Williams' wife, and from that some of Williams' personal accounts were accessed as well, Stone explained.
But Twitter is front and center in the news these days, and is now talked about as a communications protocol as much as a Web start-up. Not only does that make it a particularly appealing target, but also… Read more
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