Nobody panic - your Twitter accounts are fine, just fine. Twitter had a glitch on Monday night and accidentally sent emails to many users, warning them that their accounts had been hacked and a password reset was required. The company later reassured users that there had been no attack. It was all just a big mistake on Twitter's part.
Twitter gets hacked a lot. Some Twitter handles are just more valuable than others because of their gravitas they carry or the number of followers they hold in their thrall. Twitter users tend to get angry when their accounts get hacked or stolen. Just ask @N. So naturally, and so Twitter is a bit skittish when it comes to possible hacks.
Still, it's very annoying to be coerced into changing your password, especially when it's not even necessary. Although Twitter hasn't said how many users received the erroneous email, it seems to have been quite a few, give the amount of annoyance expressed after Twitter said, Oops, I did it again, Britney Spears style.
The emails went out on Monday to several users and led many to question whether Twitter had been hacked again.
"Twitter believes that your account may have been compromised by a website or service not associated with Twitter," the email read. "We've reset your password to prevent accessing your account."
Later on, once Twitter realized what had happened, it quickly went into action, ensuring users that Twitter hadn't been hacked and that the emails were a mistake.
"We unintentionally sent some password reset notices tonight due to a system error," Twitter said in a statement. "We apologize to the affected users for the inconvenience."
Of course, Twitter's admission that nothing was wrong made many users just as mad as if their accounts had actually been hacked. It's no fun to reset passwords, especially if you never remember any of them in the first place. Still, it seems that affected users should be a bit more happy, seeing as nothing was wrong in the first place.
Last year, a similar thing happened when 250,000 users' passwords were reset in response to a hack attempt. Twitter was forced to admit that not all of the accounts were hacked that received the email warning to reset passwords. Better safe than sorry, though, right?
