PROFESSIONAL hackers have been blamed after 250,000 Twitter users had their accounts accessed illegally.
Twitter's information-security director Bob Lord said the users' passwords had been stolen, as well as usernames, emails and other data.
Lord said the attack "was not the work of amateurs". He said it appeared similar to recent attacks on the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The US newspapers reported their computer systems had been breached by China-based hackers.
He added: "The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organisations have also been recently similarly attacked.
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It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
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We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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