Friend's Twitter got hacked

T3chnician

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Ok so my friends twitter got hacked, at least he says so, he has also contacted twitter and they refuse to reset his password. So what happened was he contacted me one day and wanted me to do a little work on his account so when I went to go plug it into my app it wouldnt work. I told him the login info was incorrect, at first he didnt believe me, then he tried to log in via pc and couldnt get in. My guess is that since he always uses his mobile it still allows him to log in somehow but if he were to reset his twitter app on his phone he would lose access to the account completely. I told him to contact twitter and to not mess with his app until he gets the password reset and is able to log in from a PC, he says they keep writing him back saying no. Anyhow my question is does anyone know how to go about cracking a twitter account? The only thing that comes to mind is "brutus" but im not sure if that will work with twitter or not and the only info I know is the username and the old password. I would even go as far to say that maybe he forgot his password? so im thinkin if brutus is able to work if anyone has any clues as to where I can get a nice password list or a password list generator to get myself a decent list to check against.... Thanks!
 
Twitter likely has measures in place to lock an account after several password tries, and from my understanding brute forcing wouldn't be effective. Are you sure there aren't any other password recovery methods?
 
well you know I saw you can add a phone number for recovery and I told him to see if he has that option from his mobile twitter app settings and he says no. I guess the mobile app only gives you a few settings options

edit - he even told me the twitter support ppl said they would escalate his request to see if anyone higher up would intervene and they just blew him off like yea right. I just dont get why they would do that? I mean he is able to log in via his mobile phone why cant they see that and reset it for him?
 
twitter has a forgot password link right on the login page. They will send it to your email or give you a link to reset your password.
 
twitter has a forgot password link right on the login page. They will send it to your email or give you a link to reset your password.

he tried with no success he told me they must have changed his email he even checked spam as I told him to (forgot to mention that in the original post sorry)
 
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Have you checked his Twitter profile to see if there are any new tweets or changes to the profile?
 
yea there isnt, I mean he uses it everyday from his phone, he is very active on it and he hasnt complained about any tampering... I swear in the back of my head I keep thinking he forgot his password but he swears to me that he didnt.

edit - is there some type of live twitter support via @mentions ? maybe if he contacts them while he is logged in via his mobile they can give him some type of password reset link? Just a guess but im leaning towards no since they didnt offer such a thing via his email contact with the support team.
 
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he tried with no success he told me they must have changed his email he even checked spam as I told him to (forgot to mention that in the original post sorry)

Well, if that is the case then someone would have had to hack his email as well. Twitter sends a confirmation message to the original email addy before you can make that change.

If he can access his account via mobile, perhaps he can send a password reminder through is password settings page. Or he could even access the account settings and see what email address is currently connected to his account.

I am not sure how much of that stuff can be seen via a mobile phone. But at the moment you cannot reset password via a mobile app. It would have to be done on a pc. At least that is according to the twitter help page. I dont use such an app so I would not know.

Just wondering, does your friend have more than one email address? If so, maybe his twitter is under a different email than he thinks.

I dont know what else to say except that maybe your friend should give up the weed! Just kidding. Hope you figure it out.
 
Well, if that is the case then someone would have had to hack his email as well. Twitter sends a confirmation message to the original email addy before you can make that change.

If he can access his account via mobile, perhaps he can send a password reminder through is password settings page. Or he could even access the account settings and see what email address is currently connected to his account.

I am not sure how much of that stuff can be seen via a mobile phone. But at the moment you cannot reset password via a mobile app. It would have to be done on a pc. At least that is according to the twitter help page. I dont use such an app so I would not know.

Just wondering, does your friend have more than one email address? If so, maybe his twitter is under a different email than he thinks.

I dont know what else to say except that maybe your friend should give up the weed! Just kidding. Hope you figure it out.

are you sure? Is this something new? I have changed email several times and only needed to input a password to initiate the change? And then log into the new email to click the activation link

edit - just saw your weed thing hhahaha to be honest he doesnt smoke! He just finished up nursing school lol btw I appreciate your input its helping me pin down all possibilities I keep thinkin its something stupid cause who would hack an account and then do nothing with it? lol
 
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I will but he never uses pc only mobile so I think its unlikely thanks tho
 
are you sure? Is this something new? I have changed email several times and only needed to input a password to initiate the change? And then log into the new email to click the activation link

edit - just saw your weed thing hhahaha to be honest he doesnt smoke! He just finished up nursing school lol btw I appreciate your input its helping me pin down all possibilities I keep thinkin its something stupid cause who would hack an account and then do nothing with it? lol

I was wrong, sorry. But it does send a message to your original email stating that you made the change.
Code:
 You recently changed the email address associated with your Twitter account ([B]account id was here[/B]). 
To confirm your new contact email, please follow the link in the confirmation message sent to that address. 

  If you did not request this change and believe your Twitter account has  been compromised, contact Twitter support by clicking this link: [URL="http://support.twitter.com/articles/31796-my-account-is-compromised-hacked?iid=am-4065281413386947335538459&nid=13&uid=18551694"]http://support.twitter.com/articles/31796-my-account-is-compromised-hacked[/URL] 
  [FONT=Arial]     [COLOR=#666666]The Twitter Team[/COLOR][/FONT]


Maybe he could do a search in his email for twitter messages and see if he got one like that. Otherwise like I said access his profile and see what email is connected to the account.

I couldn't resist the weed comment.
:cool:.

Edit: has he tried to reset password via pc?

 
One of client's twitter account got hacked earlier this year. I told him to contact the support when he asked me how could I get my account back and he did. He got his account back in like 2 weeks.

Twitter tracked my client's IP address. Twitter found that he is the genuine owner and he eventually got his account back.

So your best bet will be to contact their support and explain them nicely about the situation
 
I was wrong, sorry. But it does send a message to your original email stating that you made the change.
Code:
 You recently changed the email address associated with your Twitter account ([B]account id was here[/B]). 
To confirm your new contact email, please follow the link in the confirmation message sent to that address. 

  If you did not request this change and believe your Twitter account has  been compromised, contact Twitter support by clicking this link: [URL="http://support.twitter.com/articles/31796-my-account-is-compromised-hacked?iid=am-4065281413386947335538459&nid=13&uid=18551694"]http://support.twitter.com/articles/31796-my-account-is-compromised-hacked[/URL] 
  [FONT=Arial]     [COLOR=#666666]The Twitter Team[/COLOR][/FONT]


Maybe he could do a search in his email for twitter messages and see if he got one like that. Otherwise like I said access his profile and see what email is connected to the account.

I couldn't resist the weed comment.
:cool:.

Edit: has he tried to reset password via pc?


thanks for the info and yea he says he tried it, I really emphasized to him the need to sift through his spam filter and he said he did that as well.
 
One of client's twitter account got hacked earlier this year. I told him to contact the support when he asked me how could I get my account back and he did. He got his account back in like 2 weeks.

Twitter tracked my client's IP address. Twitter found that he is the genuine owner and he eventually got his account back.

So your best bet will be to contact their support and explain them nicely about the situation

I hear you, and you know I figured they could do that but they didnt, at the same time I didnt see his email so I dont know how he asked but I cant imagine it would have been in a rude manner. I will tell him to try to contact them again thanks
 
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