Twitter was hacked overnight, with users of the site being redirected to a different web page, credited to the "Iranian Cyber Army." For a while, Twitter was down, in fact. Things seem to have returned to semblance of normalcy at the site, but a Twitter blog post indicates the issue was a DNS hack and that they are investigating.
What appears to have happened is that the DNS records that were pointed to Twitter were hacked redirecting users to the "Iranian Cyber Army" page. DNS is the system whereby the string you type in, such was www.twitter.com is translated to the set of number (IP address) that "really" takes you to the location you want to get to. If you can hack those DNS servers, you can redirect people wherever you want.
Unfortunately for Twitter, the words "Twitter hacked" are not that unfamiliar to people. The Iranian Cyber Army is not the first group to hack the site. It's happened before, and one time Twitter was hacked simply because an employee's password was too "easy to crack."
The message give on the Iranian Cyber Army page was this:
Iranian Cyber Army
THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMY
iRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.COM
U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don’t, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To….
NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA?
WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST
Take Care.
It is unclear who the Iranian Cyber Army is, or if they are affiliated with Iran's government. You may recall earlier this year, during the disputed Iranian presidential elections, that Twitter was used by Iranian citizens to spread the word.
Twitter even delayed a period of planned maintenance so that protesters could continue to communicate with those outside Iran. That followed a request by no less than the U.S. State Department, that the maintenance be delayed.
Written by Michael Santo
HULIQ.com
Comment and add to the story without registration, but keep the comments meaningful please. Links are not accepted.
