Twitter Says No Passwords Were Leaked As Details Of 15,000 Accounts Are Posted Online

The details of over 15,000 user accounts were posted online yesterday a hacker reportedly gained access to “the entire database of users on Twitter.”

The attacker claims to be from the West African country Mauritania, and said he was carrying out his hacks – including the attack on Twitter – in the name of Islam. According to a report on GigaOm, he shared the information obtained from the Twitter database on the file-sharing site Zippyshare on Tuesday evening.

The information includes every account’s Twitter name, ID and authentication tokens associated with third-party apps that have access to the account such as HootSuite, Instagram etc.

However a Twitter spokesperson  told Mashable that no passwords were leaked: “We have investigated the situation and can confirm that no Twitter accounts were compromised.”

This comes in the same week that Twitter had emailed its ‘Verified Users’ urging them to enable two-step authentication in order to keep their accounts more secure: “With a highly visible account like yours, it’s a good idea to be extra careful,” the email read. “Login verification is a simple way to add more protection to your account.”

While passwords we not taken during the leak, it is always advisable to change yours regularly. If you want to be extra vigilant in this situation you can visit Twitter’s application page to revoke access for each of the third-party apps listed, and then go through the connection process again for the apps you still want to use once you’ve changed your password.