E-mail hack brings big data breach for Twitter

A recent system hack targeting a Twitter employee has lead to a major data breach at the micro-blogging site.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said that the breach included a number of internal documents, but no information regarding account credentials for the Twitter service itself.

The breach stems from a May incident in which French hacker known as "Hacker Croll" was able to compromise the e-mail account of a Twitter executive. From there, the hacker was said to have gained access to a number of documents through the company's Google Apps account.

Earlier this week, the hacker began releasing the documents to a number of news outlets. The stolen documents reportedly include information from company meetings, plans for a television programme, and details on the security systems at Twitter's headquarters.

In a blog posting, Stone assured Twitter users that no account information was among the stolen data.

"It's important to note that the stolen documents which where downloaded and offered to various blogs and publications are not Twitter user accounts nor were any user accounts compromised except for a screenshot of one person's account and we contacted that person and recommended changing their password," he wrote.

"This was not a hack on the Twitter service, it was a personal attack followed by the theft of private company documents."