On January 6, 2009, it was reported that members of the online forum Digital Gangster may have been behind the Twitter hacking that occurred over the weekend of January 3, 2009. A Digital Gangster forum member with the screen name GMZ claims he gained access to Twitter login information and then distributed it to other Digital Gangster members.PC World: Digital Gangster Takes Credit... (January 6, 2009)

What Happened?

The issue with these 33 accounts is different from the Phishing scam aimed at Twitter users this weekend. These accounts were compromised by an individual who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses to help people do things like edit the email address associated with their Twitter account when they can’t remember or get stuck. We considered this a very serious breach of security and immediately took the support tools offline. We’ll put them back only when they’re safe and secure.TechCrunch: Twitter Gets Hacked, Badly (January 5, 2009)