Social networking giant Twitter has confirmed that a hacking attack in May targetted the personal accounts of employees, and gained access to some of their private data.
Chief executive Evan Williams said in a statement, that while the hacker did not gain control of his own account, his wife’s Gmail account was compromised where confidential credit card data was stolen.
“Obviously, this was highly distressing to myself, my wife and other Twitter employees who were attacked. It was a good lesson for us that we are being targeted because we work for Twitter. We have taken extra steps to increase our security, but we know we can never be entirely comfortable with what we share via email,” he said.
Twitter has experienced a few hackers’ attacks, with some hackers claiming to have accessed user’s accounts and internal company documents.
Some analysts have criticised Twitter for the attacks, saying it does not have the security resources to block future attacks, and its current infrastructure is not suited for its high number of users.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
