Third-Party App Hack Results in Hijack of Thousands of Twitter Accounts

Hackers took control of several prominent Twitter accounts today, posting swastikas and slogans supporting Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Twitter Counter was also hacked last November, which affected Playstation, Xbox and the New Yorker.

The rogue tweets adorning swastikas described the hack as a “little Ottoman slap” and included an ominous message saying “See you on April 16”. According to The Verge, some accounts were even manipulated to sport the Turkish flag.

Twitter Counter’s Chief Executive Officer Omer Ginor said that the company is now investigating the incident but provided no further details on the matter. The service reportedly started an investigation into the matter and will do everything they can to avoid any such issues, in the future.

Twitter is pointing people to its support website, which recommends that people “be cautious before giving third-party applications access to your account [and] review third-party applications that have access to your account from time to time”.

The firm provides statistics to some 2 million Twitter users who link their profiles into the Twitter Connect app to track audience responses to their tweets. It remains unclear whether other third-party apps were similarly hacked, although Twitter said “no additional accounts are affected”. We quickly located the source which was limited to a third party app.

Therefore, anyone concerned is also being advised to review what apps they use on Twitter in order to make their account more secure.

The French economy ministry confirmed that its account had been hacked but said the issue had been resolved.

The growing Turk-Dutch tensions include Turkey barring the Dutch ambassador from the country Monday and halting diplomatic flights from the Netherlands from using Turkish airspace.

The incident is a reminder that despite all of the options for securing a Twitter account, apps and services that connect to the social network offer a route for hackers to compromise users.

Erdogan said the Netherlands is “sacrificing Turkish-Dutch relations”.

Twitter Counter sought to assure its users that their passwords and credit card information were not breached in the hack.