Twitter username stolen through domain name extortion

[chris]

I came across this today and thought it was a very interesting read.

My $50,000 Twitter Username Was Stolen Thanks to PayPal and GoDaddy

I had a rare Twitter username, @N. Yep, just one letter. I’ve been offered as much as $50,000 for it. People have tried to steal it. Password reset instructions are a regular sight in my email inbox. As of today, I no longer control @N. I was extorted into giving it up.

https://medium.com/p/24eb09e026dd

Cheers,
Chris

 

[James]

Yes this is kind of worrying, you would hope most companies ask some person detail questions to verify things over the phone.

 

[asantha]

Dont u think he can explain this to twitter ?

 

[FirstPageResults]

Nice share Chris.

Looks like the account is suspended now..

 

[Joel]

Interesting read. Gives a reminder to setup the extra security layers on your services such as 2-factor auth, etc.

 

[chris]

Dont u think he can explain this to twitter ?

Definitely.

Let's hope it wasn't sold before it was suspended.

 

[chris]

Here's another one, written in reply to the @n incident:

Just read your story about how your Twitter username was stolen. Sadly, the story was all to familiar to me, and mine has a couple implications that are far worse. Just thought I’d share the story in case you were interested.

I’m @jb on both Twitter and Instagram. So you can imagine my username is a very heavy target. It used to be primarily because of the Jonas Brothers but of course now it’s all related to Justin Bieber. As you can imagine, with the marketing power behind his name, there’s thousands if not more companies/hackers/etc… who’d love to get their grubby hands on it for profit.

http://d.pr/n/KUMK

 

[nt81]

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/

That was the one that made me think long and hard about my own accounts. Poor guy!

 

[plano]

An update in the @N account hacking case has just come through from GoDaddy, one of the companies involved in the somewhat convoluted social engineering case. The company admits that one of its employees was ‘socially engineered’ into giving out additional information which allowed a hacker to gain access to Naoki Hiroshima’s GoDaddy account.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/29/go...it-to-divulge-info-in-n-twitter-account-hack/

 

[plano]

PayPal today denied the allegations made in the viral story “How I lost my $50,000 Twitter username” by Naoki Hiroshima, saying it immediately investigated the situation and has found it was not at fault. The company said its policies prohibit the discussion of “details related to our customers’ accounts,” but it wants to set the record straight as best as it can.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/...acker-hijacked-50000-twitter-username/#!tZnBO