Pinterest hacked again with weight loss posts, Twitter affected as well

Pinterest was hacked again, with a large number of user accounts posting links about weight-loss messages and pins, that later began spamming Twitter as well. According to TheNextWeb the messages on Pinterest included messages about Asian fruit that promised to burn fat, along with other messages about weight loss.   Pinterest’s hack also spread on Twitter, which meant that Twitter was also flooded with the spam messages. The spillover happebed because a large number of Pinterest users log in to the service via-third-party sites and services like Twitter.  Firstpost’s official Twitter account was also affected.   Some users pointed out that they had been hacked and weren’t really interested in posting about weight loss.  Check out the tweets below: 

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  This spam and hacking incident comes after a previous one this year in March, where users found their feeds flooded with pictures of butts and more weight loss advice. As TechCrunch had reported then, “multiple accounts have been hacked and flooded with spam.” Pinterest had then responded, “Our systems were alerted to some incidents of spam yesterday evening. These reports did not come in at a large scale. We began working on cleaning up and placing the accounts in safe mode immediately. The accounts have since been secured. As a precaution, Pinners should use unique and strong passwords, and can get more information in our Help Center.” This time however there has still been no response from Pinterest, and it’s no clear how many accounts this spam has affected. For users whose Pinterest account got hacked and then spilled onto Twitter, they should reset their password, ideally for both sites. Also the key is to not allow any suspicious apps or services link to Pinterest, if you are linking the service to Facebook or Twitter. Most importantly do not to click on spam links. While weight loss is the obvious spam, there’s also the bikini girl spam, which usually has a hot pic and a shocking title accompanied by a video. Users should also try and not use the same passwords across two different accounts, and ideally a password should be eight characters or more with string variables thrown in for good measure.