Twitter's (TWTR) 32M Passwords Leaked And Now Up For Sale

As per a LeakedSource report, there are some 32 million Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) passwords that have been compromised with and available for sale on the dark web. LeakedSource is a search engine for stolen data and currently has over 1.8 billion leaked records, which are accessible for a fee.

LeakedSource named the source as Tessa88@exploit.im, who provided it with the Twitter data.

The report also adds that Twitter’s systems weren’t likely compromised but the data including passwords was hacked over a period of time by malware-affected browsers that saved and sent back the information to the hackers. This is because Twitter doesn’t store passwords in plain text but Chrome and Firefox do so. This indicates that the passwords were stolen directly from consumers.

The onslaught was particularly severe in Russia with nearly 7.4 million accounts being hacked. Moreover, LeakedSource, also said that the breach was no hoax as “out of 15 users we asked, all 15 verified their passwords”. LeakedSource now has transferred the huge cache of data to its database but will let affected users remove the information for free.

A Twitter spokesperson later clarified that Twitter systems haven’t been breached and that it has notified its millions of affected users.

Earlier, social media services like MySpace, LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) and Tumblr also faced a similar situation where sensitive information of their users was put up for sale. Reportedly LinkedIn had about 117 million accounts hacked in May this year. Recently, many high profile Twitter accounts like that of Katy Perry and Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg have been hacked. Even Twitter’s NFL account was hacked to spread false rumors about the death of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

With the growing importance of digital activity, data theft has become a major concern. Users have been repeatedly warned to keep different passwords for multiple accounts so that hacking one account (for e.g. a social media account) doesn’t put other important ones (like bank accounts) at risk. Moreover, the usage of a password manager like 1Password, and KeePass is recommended.

At present, Twitter carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked stock worth considering in the same space is NetEase Inc (NASDAQ:NTES) , which sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).