Micro-blogging website Twitter confirmed on Friday that unidentified hackers had accessed the website and obtained the data of up to 250,000 of its users.
The passwords and personal information such as email addresses of the users could have been found by the hackers, the company wrote in a blog post on its website on Friday.
“This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later,” the post read.
“However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.”
The online attack comes on the heels of recent hacks into the computer systems of US media and technology companies, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Both American newspapers reported this week that their computer systems had been infiltrated by China-based hackers, likely to monitor media coverage the Chinese government deems important.
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