Twitter says accounts were not compromised despite hacker's claims

A hacker operating under the name “Mauritania Attacker” has claimed so – but even though he released purported account information for more than 15,000 users on Tuesday morning, officials with Twitter said the service was not affected.

The pro-Islam hacker, who takes his moniker from the West African Arab Maghreb country in which he is said to reside, posted the Twitter information – 15,167 accounts in total – to file-hosting website Zippyshare on Tuesday morning. He claims to have access to numerous more.

Each account on the list included Twitter nickname, numerical identification number and OAuth token and OAuth token secret exposed. Passwords were not compromised, but the OAuth information may be all a hacker needs to access a Twitter account.