Month Of Twitter Bugs exposes microblogging flaws

Making a hashtag of Web 2.0 security

By John Leyden, 3rd July 2009

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The Month Of Twitter Bugs has begun with the publication of a flaw in a URL shortening service often used in conjunction with the microblogging service.

Four cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in the bit.ly URL-shrinking service were published on Wednesday. TweetDeck, one of the most popular Twitter clients, integrates bit.ly, making the flaws much more risky than might otherwise be the case.

Fortunately, three of the four bugs were fixed before an alert was published. The last flaw was addressed hours after the release of a notice via Twitpwn, the home page of the Month Of Twitter Bugs project.

On Thursday, the Twitpwn project published details of a resolved cross-site scripting flaw in HootSuite toolbox.

The Month of Bugs series was inaugurated three years ago with a four week period that offered a different browser bug every day. Originally, the brainchild of HD Moore, of Metasploit fame, noted researcher Aviv Raff is applying the idea to Twitter and associated service during July. He notes that the idea might just as easily be applied to any other Web 2.0 service.

Raff is calling on third-party application developers to work with Twitter in developing more secure tools. Several hacking attacks against Twitter have emerged over recent months, many related in one way or another to password security. Microbloggers are being urged to adopt more secure passwords in response to the heightened risk of hacking attacks against Twitter. ®

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