Hackers Compromise 250K Twitter Accounts

If Twitter sent you an email about resetting your password, it's no mere helpful hint. And you probably want to disable Java from your browser while you're at it, advises the company, which revealed last night that 250,000 accounts were compromised in a hack, reports AP. The hackers may have gotten emails, user names, and other data. Probably the scariest nugget in Twitter's blog post:

• "This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident. The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked."

It's not clear who is behind it, but AllThingsD says it doesn't appear to be related to the much-publicized hacks of the New York Times and other media sites, or to this week's slowdowns at Amazon and Bank of America. "From chatter on Twitter, it seems that most of the affected accounts were older, or 'owned' by users who had really early accounts," notes Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing, who was user No. 767 and was affected. As for disabling Java, Slate has a how-to here. (More Twitter stories.)