It was my first reaction when my twitter account got hacked yesterday. Yes, you heard me right 
. I’ve attached few screenshots and email from twitter as a proof. So what happened exactly? Why my account got hacked? How to restore my account and find the culprit? These were the initial questions ran through my mind.
Step by step tutorial towards the success
1. As I had got 24 email from twitter regarding change of account password (check the screenshots), I checked my email carefully to check the time when it exactly happened. I tracked down my activities according to that time. Surprisingly I was not online during that time,huh? I was in dreamland during that time
2. Next step was to update my antivirus, trojan killers and sharpen my all weapons to search and destroy the culprit.
3. I immediately checked my all account to check weather they have been compromised or not (and to find out traces). Luckily, my other accounts were safe. What does it indicate? It means that my browsers cookies are safe (or atleast I think so).
4. I cleared all cookies, cache and saved passwords from the browser.
5. Scanned my whole computer for trojans, spywares and other viruses. My antivirus was updated so there were no issues. No virus or trojans found on my computer.
6. I went to twitter and recovered my password from my forgot my password option.
7. Next step was very crucial, as I immediately went to http://twitter.com/account/connections link to check the existence of any suspicious third party software. I unapproved all of them to be on safer side (check the screenshot where I’ve highlighted the text of Jskit third party software which I approved few hours before my account got attacked, I am not blaming it, just giving you an example. I used twivert also) .
8. Checked all my tweets for existence of any suspicious link or tweets. In my case it was not the case. If you found any tweet or link note them down and check each link individually or search them in Google.9. So what happened exactly? Why there is no suspicious activity in my account? Some more question ran in my mind.
I tried to remember all the activities and noted it down.
My suspicion was on the link given by my friend and other link clicked by me.
Whom to blame then?
I still can’t say firmly that weather my account got hacked by phishing or some other method. But one think is sure that it has something to do with those link and third party software
My Final Thought
Do not panic when you come to know that your account is hacked. Never click on the links given by your friends or anyone. Use firefox phishtank plugin when you have a doubt on any link. Remember to contact the supporting staff and explain them the situation. If possible change the password of other accounts as precautionary measure
Download the phishtank plugin from here.
Have you ever been in such situation? Share your thought and experience with us. I am sure it will be more interesting than my experience
{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
Many a times i get such phising mail claiming to be from Paypal but i dont click those..
.-= sham´s last blog ..Free Bookmark Box from Technobuz =-.
@sham
Even I don’t click on such emails. I doubt that it was the link from twitter.
Really worried to see that ur twitter account is hacked. So what happened after all!
.-= BlogrPro´s last blog ..What’s up in BlogrPro? =-.
@BlogrPro
and luckily no damage was done.
Karkey, I managed to get my twitter account back
WoW.. Nice post.. I would also like to share my experience here.. When it comes to security measures, I am always one step ahead. But one day, I found all my friends on orkut account deleted, even all contacts on my gmail deleted. I suspected my account has been hacked as the last login time which I noticed on orkut was not same the time I logged in before but my password was not changed. I had not clicked on any of suspicious lists, My pc is well protected by KIS security and antispywares. I changed my password. I guess it was a bug or problem from orkut or gmail side. I neither believe nor can digest that my account was hacked. Any suspicion whether your account was hacked or not renders you in some mental upheaval
.-= FreeTechJournal´s last blog ..Google official blogs list : Google Products and Technologies =-.
@FreeTechJournal
Sometime even a pro can get hacked. Initially I was so embarrassed, later I though of presenting it in front of the world. I had a similar problem with orkut, one of my friend sent a malicious links to all and within a few hours all my friends account got hacked. They found some new friends in their profile and communities which they never joined before. Luckily, we all managed to recover the account. Since then I don’t click on any suspicious links.
If you still have that e-mail, you could check where the link actually goes? If it’s in HTML they can just write “www.twitter.com bla bla bla” but the actual link goes to “www.twitterhacker.com bla bla bla”, try to hover your mouse over the link and it should say?
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..Nokia 7705 Twist: Square’ish Swivel Mobile Phone? =-.
@Klaus @TechPatio
I clicked on the link from twitter. I didn’t want to mention that. And thanx for the suggestion, I know little bit of html (anchor text).
By the way, you should probably remove the “U Comment I Follow”-banner from your footer, since all the links from comments to this post are _no_ follow
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..Nokia 7705 Twist: Square’ish Swivel Mobile Phone? =-.
@Klaus @TechPatio
I wanted to make the comments do follow, but I didn’t get enough time. Very soon techgenuine will be a do-follow blog with keywordluv enable
hey that’s great that you get you account back,
.-= mostlyBlog´s last blog ..Samsung S5230W Star | Samsung Star WiFi Price India | Samsung Star Wifi specification =-.
@mostlyBlog
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Yes I did get my account back
Check my Twitter account, and thank god (nothing suspicious). BTW, thanks for sharing about this. Need to be more careful nowadays
.-= steppinout´s last blog ..50 High Quality Social Media Icons For Free =-.
@steppinout
Yes we need to be more careful these days. I immediately installed phishtank plugin. Now, the every external links goes through the phishtank test
You need to be careful. Sometime bad things come through known people as well. It is good that you were able to solve your problem.
And thanks for the tips and info you gave.
.-= Agent 001´s last blog ..5 Awesome How to Websites =-.
@Agent001
I usually don’t fall in this type of traps but…………
Hey Ricky, too bad that you got hacked. Are you up and running again? I just retweeted this post and Twitter asked for my account name and password (which it never does) and it said wrong password. I tried 3 more times and nothing. Then I noticed that I was writing my password wrong, duhh. It’s ok now.
.-= Asswass´s last blog ..Triple Monday WOP: How Long Blogging, How many Comments, How many Posts =-.
@Asswass
. lol
Yeah I still can’t digest the fact that I got hacked. Don’t scare me now bro
Thanks for the post, bookmarked it.
.-= Hariharakumar´s last blog ..ClickableNow: Add Clickable Links to your Twitter Background Image =-.
@Hariharkumar
Thanx for the bookmark buddy.
To be fair, your account didn’t actually get hacked. You willingly gave your password to someone who had made a phishing website that looked like the Twitter site. Of course, you didn’t know it at the time so it’s not really your fault, but you have to be very careful with these email links. Always check the address of the website in the URL bar in your browser to make sure that you are really on the right page. Also it’s good to see that you got your account back and there were no other problems. If you use the same password for other accounts you should definitely change those passwords.
@Princeton Moving Companies
You are right, It was a silly move on my side. I should have checked the website url before clicking it. But the best part is I learned something from it. Now I check all urls before clicking it. Hey, thanks for the suggestion. I really appreciate that
Well sometimes we aren’t aware of these and make mistakes even though we already know not to
I made a mistake once logging in to a fake digitalpoint site thinking i was logging to the correct one *ugh* Thankfully I noticed it after a few errors
.-= Michael Aulia´s last blog ..A new service from Google, the Google Sidewiki =-.
@Michael Aulia
Thank god you realized it soon
Phishing sites are all over the web, but it’s good when you can get back the account.
.-= Scott@id baieti´s last blog ..gaciu_florin =-.
@Scott
Yes it is good that I’ve got my account back. BTW thanx for stopping by at techgenuine.
With Facebook and Twitter hacks nowadays.. *sigh* I guess privacy has really becoming an issue
.-= Michael Aulia´s last blog ..A new service from Google, the Google Sidewiki =-.
@Michael Aulia
Privacy has always been a big issue. We need to be more careful when we click on any links. Internet world can never be free of those spammers and hackers.
My facebook account got hacked (I think) by someone who kept updating my status with a Bowel- Colon cleansing advert that makes you lose 8Ibs in 2 weeks. If my friend who’s interested in losing some pounds hadn’t mailed me with respect to the status, I would never have known. So far so good changing my password to a stronger one saved the day.
OMG! I just remembered my facebook and email use the same password. Gotta go change my email password right way.
Cheers.
.-= Udegbunam Chukwudi´s last blog ..Atomic Blogging 3: The Newbie’s Guide To Blogging =-.
@Udegbunam Chukwudi
Omg. As far as possible I don’t keep same password for my accounts. It is good to hear that you got your account back
My twitter accounts just got hacked – I did not receive an email, instead started getting DM’s from friends saying they’d received a link that didn’t work. I immediately cleared all cached items, changed passwords and am running another check. Had just downloaded new version of Adobe Air for Seesmic – which I’d done the other day and it messed up my computer then too. Thinking something is very wrong…
@Payson
Awww. Good to hear that you are able to reset your password. I advice you to clear all saved passwords and cookies from your browser and disable all the third party application from the twitter. Scan your whole computer with updated antivirus to remove all the traces. Let me know whether you are able to find the culprit or not
Thanks Ricky – appreciate the information and that you blogged about this. It was hard to find stuff. I really think it had something to do with Seesmic and Adobe Air, but not sure what. Have done everything you suggested and hopefully all is back on track.
.-= Payson´s last blog ..Marketing and Business Brilliance Strategies for Entrepreneurs =-.
@Payson
Well I can’t blame them (actually I am not sure whom to blame.lol). I hope everything will be alright. Do not forget to update us with your progress
This is a pretty interesting read! I can’t say I have any experience with my Twitter accounts being hacked, probably because I use secure passwords and don’t give them away, that kinda stuff…. but yeah it’s definitely a possibility!
.-= Blogger Den´s last blog ..The Best Places to Get Quality Backlinks =-.
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