Tuesday, a hacking news and activist hub called Airdemon reported that hackers had compromised the accounts of 55,000 Twitter users. Airdemon posted a link with what it said were the usernames and passwords for those accounts.
Twitter pointed out that of the 55,000 exposed accounts, more than 20,000 were duplicate accounts and many others were spam accounts. In a statement released Wednesday, Twitter said it sent password reset emails to all users on the long list as a precautionary measure. The statement urged users to reset passwords if they fear their accounts may have been hacked.
According to PC Magazine, it remains unknown who or what group is behind the breach. Airdemon suggested the attack was intended to warn Twitter's 140 million users that their accounts could be hacked anytime.
The attack also highlights the prevalence of spammers in Twitterverse. In April, Twitter sued marketing firms behind some of the spam campaigns. Twitter also announced it had launched internal tools to combat spammers.
