Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/07/06/paypaluk_twitter_hack/

Twitter hacker flings poo at PayPal

Avatar hack payback after account freeze fracas

By John Leyden

Posted in Security, 6th July 2011 13:13 GMT

An angry user hacked into PayPal UK's Twitter account on Tuesday night and changed the e-commerce company's avatar photo to a heap of steaming crap.

The hacker also posted several unflattering tweets ridiculing PayPal. The hacker appears to be an angry PayPal customer motivated by a dispute over a frozen PayPal account. The offending messages, removed after the rightful account-holders regained control of the account, have been preserved for posterity in a blog post by Sophos here.

PayPal said the breach had only affected its Twitter account and had nothing to do with its customer systems and data. Nonetheless the incident is embarrassing, especially since it appears that PayPal (an ebanking operation that ought to know better about such things) fell foul of either a phishing scam or weak password security.

The PayPalUK hack follows a similar hijack of a Fox News Twitter account earlier this week. ®