Twitter’s security measures have been called into question following two high-profile account hacks in the past 24 hours, one of which included Twitter’s own chief financial officer, Anthony Noto.
TechCrunch reports Noto’s account was flooded with spam tweets for around 20 minutes on Tuesday morning, with nearly 300 tweets sent to his 13,000 followers.
Meanwhile, the FBI is investigating a hack into the Twitter account of US magazine Newsweek, which resulted in threats against the Obama family being posted.
One tweet was directed at US first lady Michelle Obama, saying the hacker was “watching you, you [sic] girls and your husband!”
According to Newsweek, the account was taken over by a group claiming to be affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS), which has previously hacked the Twitter account of the United States Central Command, as well as the official Twitter account of pop star Taylor Swift.
The magazine said its account remained hacked for 14 minutes until Twitter’s support team regained control of the account at the publication’s request.
“We apologise to our readers for anything offensive that might have been sent from our account during that period, and are working to strengthen our newsroom security measures going forward,” said Newsweek managing editor Kira Bindrim.
Last week, US Mexican fast food chain Chipotle’s Twitter account was hacked to post a series of racist, homophobic and anti-government tweets.
Chipotle later sent a tweet apologising for “the very offensive messages sent out from our account earlier tonight. We were unfortunately hijacked temporarily.”
Twitter is yet to officially comment on the recent hacks.
Kirsten Robb is a former journalist at SmartCompany. Previously, she worked at News Corp as a property reporter for Leader Newspapers and the Herald Sun, and holds a Masters of Journalism at Melbourne University.
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