Thaindian News

By Ranjan Bhaduri
Sep 22, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Users of the popular micro-blogging site Twitter were in for a surprise yesterday when they tried to log in to their accounts. The users were shocked to find many unwanted pop-ups and spam messages. Some users were even redirected to sleazy websites which caught them by sheer surprise. The users initially thought that Twitter was hacked. However, this was not the case. The problem took place because of a cross-site scripting vulnerability. A JavaScript command was used to generate the spam messages and pop ups in the interface of Twitter. The confused users tried in vain to figure out the root of the problem.

Twitter was prompt to embark into damage control mode and succeeded in resolving the vulnerability. However, a lot of celebrities who use Twitter were also affected by this fiasco. According to a report, a person named Magnus Holm is responsible for distributing the code that exploited the vulnerability and led to the chaos and confusion among the users. Reportedly, the man told a major media entity that he wrote the code but did not have any malicious intention.

The Twitter users who logged into their accounts using some third party programs however did not get affected by this loophole. It seems that the flaw did not result in data loss or any severe damage but the cyber criminals can exploit such codes and wreck havoc with corporate and average users. The hackers are increasingly using the social networking sites to gain access to other computers and steal data and spread worms online. This has happened with other services in recent times and Twitter may be the next in their list.