TweetDeck Hacked And Temporarily Taken Offline

Twitter took its desktop Twitter client, TweetDeck, offline today following what is reported to be a massive security breach.

When news first broke, TweetDeck recommended that all users remove access to their accounts immediately. Then TweetDeck went a step further to protect its users when major accounts started spreading malicious code by completely shutting the service down.

There have been multiple reports so far of malicious code emanating from a few major accounts, including politicians and major news outlets.

The vulnerability allows attackers to place computer code in a tweet. Once the tweet appears inside Tweetdeck, the code can run actions and be re-tweeted to other accounts, further spreading the problem.

TechCrunch reports that the problem, known as an XSS vulnerability, has been fixed. At the time of this writing, TweetDeck has just turned itself back on:

The extent of the damage remains to be seen, but we will keep readers updated as this story develops.

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