As it appears the millions of Twitter accounts available for sale are real..A hacker, who has made accounts from hacks available from time to time data on MySpace, LinkedIn and Tumblr, is said to be trying to sell millions of Twitter accounts as well.
A Russian with the pseudonym Tessa88 managed to obtain the database, which includes email addresses post officey, usernames and passwords in plain text.
Tessa88 allegedly sells data for 10 bitcoins, or about 5.820 dollars.
Tessa88 reported that data includes 379 million accounts from 2015.
However, the analysis of the database by LeakedSource, a website that discloses data violations, showed that there are actually more than 32 million alleged accounts in the database when it removed the duplicates.
LeakedSource even states that it is highly unlikely that Twitter was hacked, and that the leak is likely to be caused by someone malicious. software.
The LeakedSource team also reported that passwords are "stolen directly from consumers, and are therefore plain text without encryption." They also rightly noticed that Twitter has not stored its users' data in plain text since 2014.
"However, these credentials are real and valid," the group said. “The lesson here? It's not just the Companies which can be violated. And users should be very careful.”
A spokesman for Twitter said:
“Μια σειρά από άλλες online υπηρεσίες αναφέρουν εκατομμύρια κωδικούς πρόσβασης που είχαν κλαπεί στο παρελθόν. Σας προτείνουμε να χρησιμοποιείτε ένα μοναδικό, και ισχυρό κωδικό πρόσβασης για τον account you on Twitter.”