May saw the data of hundreds of millions of LinkedIn and Myspace users leaked by hackers. Now, the same is happening to Twitter -- with the same people reportedly responsible.
A Russian hacker, who goes by the name Tessa88, claimed on Tuesday to be in possession of a cache containing email addresses, passwords and usernames of 379 million Twitter accounts, reports ZDNet. On Wednesday, LeakedSource claimed that the real number of accounts was just under 33 million. That's more than 10 percent of Twitter's monthly active users.
Tessa88 is selling the database for 10 bitcoins, or roughly $5,810, AU$7,770 and £4,000, according to ZDNet. The publication also reported that the seller had links to the recent breaches of LinkedIn and Myspace.
LeakedSource said that it was unlikely that Twitter was breached, hypothesising instead that "millions of people have become infected by malware, and the malware sent every saved username and password from browsers like Chrome and Firefox back to the hackers from all websites including Twitter.
It follows the hacking into of high profile Twitter accounts, like those of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and singer Katy Perry, who has the most followers of anyone on the social media platform.
"To help keep people safe and accounts protected, we've been checking our data against what's been shared from recent password leaks," Twitter said in a Tweet on Tuesday.
A Russian hacker, who goes by the name Tessa88, claimed on Tuesday to be in possession of a cache containing email addresses, passwords and usernames of 379 million Twitter accounts, reports ZDNet. On Wednesday, LeakedSource claimed that the real number of accounts was just under 33 million. That's more than 10 percent of Twitter's monthly active users.
Tessa88 is selling the database for 10 bitcoins, or roughly $5,810, AU$7,770 and £4,000, according to ZDNet. The publication also reported that the seller had links to the recent breaches of LinkedIn and Myspace.
LeakedSource said that it was unlikely that Twitter was breached, hypothesising instead that "millions of people have become infected by malware, and the malware sent every saved username and password from browsers like Chrome and Firefox back to the hackers from all websites including Twitter.
It follows the hacking into of high profile Twitter accounts, like those of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and singer Katy Perry, who has the most followers of anyone on the social media platform.
"To help keep people safe and accounts protected, we've been checking our data against what's been shared from recent password leaks," Twitter said in a Tweet on Tuesday.
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