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TweetDeck Vulnerability Opens User Accounts To Hackers

Hackers have exploited a vulnerability in TweetDeck, a popular interface for the social media service, taking control of users' accounts to send gibberish and display odd dialogue boxes, such as:

Twitter responded:

... and then a few minutes later:

The Guardian says the problem is a "cross-site scripting" (XSS) vulnerability, saying: "Most attacks using the vulnerability are no more than irritations, opening warning dialogues on users' computers — though one version created a retweet of itself, and spread 38,000 times in two minutes, and another changed the font on TweetDeck itself to Comic Sans."

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Scott Neuman is a reporter and editor, working mainly on breaking news for NPR's digital and radio platforms.