Thousands of Twitter usernames and passwords leaked

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"Hackers" have released a list containing 55,000 Twitter usernames and passwords. Mercifully, more than half are duplicates, and most of the others are spam accounts.

If you happen across headlines warning about tens of thousands of Twitter usernames and passwords leaking onto the Web, don’t worry about it — unless you happen to be a spammer.
Earlier today, a post on hacker news aggregation site Air Demon declared that “anonymous hackers” (with a lower-case “a”) had released a list containing “55,000+” Twitter logins onto Pastebin.com. And, in fact, such a list exists. The list is actually housed on five different Pastebin pages, because of its seemingly endless length.
Fortunately, nearly half of the logins listed are duplicates, and most of the rest belong to suspended spam accounts. It appears as though some of the accounts may be owned and operated by legitimate Twitter users, however, so the careful amongst you may want to verify your absence. Here is the full list: 1 / 2  3 / 4 / 5.
In an email with The New York Times, a Twitter spokesperson said that the company is “currently looking into the situation,” and that anyone whose account credentials were exposed in the “leak” has been sent an email to reset their password.
So, unless you received an email from Twitter, that’s pretty much it for this one. That said, it is essential to fortify your Twitter account — and any other online account — with the strongest possible password. (Here’s our guide for how to craft a Kevlar password.) If you really want to be safe, change your password frequently. And never use the same password across multiple accounts — especially critical accounts like banks and credit cards.