New Twitter Hack Attacks Unicef, BBC, Forbes Magazine, Other High-Profile Accounts With Nazi Propaganda

On Wednesday, a third-party tool on Twitter enabled a widespread hack that attacked several high-profile Twitter accounts with Nazi propaganda. CNET reports that affected accounts include  the European Parliament to Unicef, from actress Sarah Shahi to Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure, and media outlets Forbes Magazine, BBC North America, Die Welt and Reuters Japan, all thanks to the hack introduced on the Twitter counter, a tool that measures Twitter stats.

The Amsterdam-based company behind the third-party tool informed its users about the hack in an attempt to appease identity and data theft concerns on Twitter. Their March 15 tweet read, “The Twitter Counter application is blocked on Twitter. If this activity continues, then we strongly believe it's not just through us.”

Twitter also responded to the hack, and directed its users on how to secure their accounts from the hack. They said, "We are aware of an issue affecting a number of account holders this morning. Our teams are working at pace and taking direct action on this issue. We quickly located the source which was limited to a third party app. We removed its permissions immediately."

BGR said the messages in the hack express support of current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of who recently awaits the country’s referendum, which will decide whether to keep him in power. The affected accounts had resulted to sending out tweets with hashtags “NaziGermany” and “NaziHolland,” as well as a message that said “See you on April 16th,” referring to the referendum date.