Yesterday started with a stir across the popular social network, Twitter, as Mashable.com (with the help of blogger Andrew Girdwood) put its users on high alert:

Numerous Twitter users are pointing out that Twitter forced them to change their passwords out of the blue. According to blogger Andrew Girdwood, these users have received an e-mail containing the following message: “Due to concern that your account may have been compromised in a phishing attack that took place off-Twitter, your password was reset,” together with a link for resetting the password.

Although the e-mail itself looks like a phishing attack, it’s genuine; it seems that admins at Twitter have discovered something fishy is going on, and they’re trying to prevent further damage before it happens.

This development had not only become a trending topic on Twitter, but started to grab media attention, including the Washington Post. While this situation shouldn’t be taken lightly, we at IDGuardian do not recommend that you start changing any passwords on accounts. According to our research, Twitter users are finding out via an “official email” from Twitter.com or from other Twitter users. Meanwhile, on Twitter’s Status and News blogs, there is no mention of this phishing scam whatsoever.

This gives us a moment’s pause, and it should do the same for you, too.

Before concerning yourself with falling prey to a malicious Social Media hacker, follow this simple checklist:

• Check your third party clients (TweetDeck, DestroyTwitter, etc.) and see how they are behaving. If they are connecting with Twitter, you are doing just fine.
• Check Twitter Status. This is one of two blogs that keep users in the know about what is happening on Twitter. This particular blog is more technically oriented, but reports outages and hostile actions such as DoS attacks. In the late hours of Tuesday night, a posting did appear that may have explained yesterday’s odd behavior reported across the network.
• Check Twitter’s Blog. This is news and developments from Twitter’s home base, and usually developers will give commentary here on any hacker attacks, interface redesigns, or serious issues that Twitter is encountering at that time.
• Follow @Twitter’s feed. No, they might not answer a query, but with something as serious as this there may be some updates in their feed that can give you sound advice on how to fix a potential problem.
• Follow @safety, Twitter’s Trust and Safety account. Managed by Twitter’s own Del Harvey, this is the voice of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Team. They did have a post about this matter at 11:26 am, several hours after Mashable, the Washington Post, et al. went live with their postings (No mention of this being a phishing attack.); and they did a follow-up posting concerning the importance of “regular password changing” that was shared on this feed. Again, another valuable resource in maintaining your identity security on Twitter.

Always check with the source before taking action. It may be a moment’s hesitation, but in that brief second you may be able to avoid unwanted stress and undue inconvenience.

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