Social media giant Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) suffered a glitch yesterday wherein it automatically reset tens of thousands of users passwords and sent account holders a message that their accounts may have been compromised. It turns out, however, that it was a false alarm. No accounts were actually compromised and the email warning message and the automatic password resets were just a system glitch.
The problem was first noted yesterday evening when thousands of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) users started sounding off that they had been locked out of their accounts and were forced to reset their passwords.
Text of the erroneous Twitter message
The email message set to users read: “Twitter believes that your account may have been compromised by a website or service not associated with Twitter. We’ve reset your password to prevent others from accessing your account.” It’s easy to see why users who received this cryptic message were upset and wanted further details on the situation.
Twitter statement today
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) finally released an official statement regarding the situation this morning: “We unintentionally sent some password reset notices tonight due to a system error,” a Twitter spokesman said. “We apologize to the affected users for the inconvenience.”
The statement went on to explain that the problem does not appear to be related to any kind of a security breach, and that the automatic reset was caused by an internal error. Impacted Twitter users will have to reset their password in order to use their accounts.
Gizmodo is reporting that the glitch affected less than 1% of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s customers.
Despite the news of the glitch, Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) stock is up 84 cents at $54.56 as of 2:24 PM ET. While the company’s stock price has slipped a little in the last couple of months, it is still around $10 above the November 2013 IPO price.
