Twitter has denied the reports that millions of accounts have been hacked and that login credentials of 32 million Twitter accounts are being sold on dark web.
The latest news comes only days after Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter and Pinterest accounts were hacked. News of the database being up for sale was reported by LeakedSource, a security firm that claimed that after removing duplicates, the leaked cache in fact contained over 32 million user credentials. The leak is supposed to contain usernames, email addresses, and plain-text passwords.
Michael Coate, Trust & Information Security Officer, Twitter said in a blog post,
We’ve investigated claims of Twitter @names and passwords available on the “dark web,” and we’re confident the information was not obtained from a hack of Twitter’s servers
Twitter said that it has cross-checked data following which a number of Twitter accounts were identified for extra protection. The company has locked accounts with direct password exposure and has those users to reset their passwords.
Twitter offered a few tips in its post:
- Enable login verification (e.g. two factor authentication). This is the single best action you can take to increase your account security.
- Use a strong password that you don’t reuse on other websites.
- Use a password manager such as 1Password or LastPass to make sure you’re using strong, unique passwords everywhere.