Twitter user data leaked online after security breach

Twitter is launching an investigation to establish how thousands of its user account passwords and email addresses leaked onto a public website.

Data from more than 55,000 accounts appeared on Pastebin – a service commonly used by hackers to gloat about their achievements – but the social network was quick to point out that a large quantify of those profiles were spam bots and duplicates.

Sources claim that hacking collective Anonymous was behind the breach, which is thought to have affected some genuine accounts. Twitter recommends that users who fear their account has been compromised should manually reset their password.

“We are currently looking into the situation. In the meantime, we have pushed out password resets to accounts that may have been affected,” Twitter spokesman Robert Weeks said in a statement issued to CNET.

“For those who are concerned that their account may have been compromised, we suggest resetting your passwords and more in our Help Centre.”