The Zuckerberg Twitter hack has clearly demonstrated the danger of password reuse. Zuckerberg used the same password for Twitter as he did for his Pinterest and LinkedIn accounts. In spite of the Facebook founder, chairman, and CEO’s lofty position at the top of the world’s most popular social media network, he is guilty of poor data security practices like many others.
In addition to reusing passwords, Zuckerberg also chose a password of 6 digits with no capital letters, symbols, or numbers and did not change it for at least three years. The password was revealed to be “dadada.”
Mark Zuckerberg Twitter Hack Stemmed from the LinkedIn Data Breach
A collective known as OurMine was responsible for the Mark Zuckerberg Twitter hack. The collective, which is understood to hail from Saudi Arabia, gained access to data from the LinkedIn breach. The data were listed for sale a few days previously by a hacker operating under the name of “Peace”.
The LinkedIn passwords were not stored as plaintext, so a little effort was required to reverse the hash to obtain the password. While SHA-1 was thought to be impossible to reverse, it has since been shown to be a relatively straightforward task unless the passwords are also salted. In the case of LinkedIn, they were not.
Simply enter in the SHA-1 hash of a password into one of many reverse hash calculators and the plaintext password will be revealed. A search of the keyword phrase “how to reverse a sha1 password” will reveal many online options for doing so. Once the password had been obtained, access to online accounts was possible.
The Zuckerberg Twitter hack did not appear to cause anything other than some embarrassment. The group notified Zuckerberg of the hack by tweeting him using his own account, saying “we are just testing your security.” While the tweet said that Zuckerberg’s Instagram account was compromised, it has since been confirmed that this account was secure all along, as was Zuckerberg’s Facebook account.
While it is embarrassing, it should be pointed out that Zuckerberg was not a regular Twitter user, having only sent 19 tweets from his account in the past four years. His compromised Pinterest account was similarly rarely used.
Spate of Account Hacks Reported After Major Data Leaks
Other individuals were not quite so fortunate. Since the data from the LinkedIn breach was made available online, numerous celebrity social media accounts have been compromised. The Twitter accounts of celebrities such as Keith Richards and Kylie Jenner were hacked, as was the account of Tenacious D. The latter’s account was used to send a tweet saying Jack Black had died.
While these hacks have not been confirmed as stemming from the LinkedIn breach (or the MySpace or Tumblr breaches) the spate of account hijacks suggest as much.
TeamViewer GmbH was also a victim, having had numerous accounts compromised recently. The company provides remote desktop software and a number of users claim that the hacking of GmbH employee accounts enabled attackers to compromise their computers and authorize PayPal and Amazon transactions. This was attributed to “password mismanagement” by GmbH rather than any flaws in their software.
All of these account hacks show how common the reuse of passwords is, and the danger of doing so. What should be particularly worrying for businesses, is many people use their LinkedIn passwords for work accounts, or vice versa. If that password is obtained via a data breach, malicious actors could do a considerable amount of damage.
Important Online Security Best Practices
To improve security and reduce the risk of more than one account being compromised….
- Never reuse passwords
- Create a complex password for each platform – use symbols, capitals, and numerals
- Change your passwords regularly – every month or three months
- Use 2-factor authentication if available
- Use a password manager to help keep track of passwords
- Don’t store your passwords in your browser
- Regularly check your email address/username against the Have I Been Pwned? database
