I’ve been using Hootsuite for a few years now and until today I have absolutely loved it. It has beaten out TweetDeck, and a slew of other promising social media tools to be my Go To social media tool online and on my phone and tablet. With Sprout Social being my Go To for pretty executive reporting. I’ve had no major problems or complaints regarding Hootsuite ever. Well that changed tonight when my account got hacked and spewed spam links to my 20+ personal and professional accounts. I quickly deleted all instances of spam links, changed passwords all over the place, and turned to Twitter, Facebook and Google for answers, to apologize to those offended, and to see if anyone else has had this happen.
It turns out that there has been a lot of hacked Hootsuite accounts this week and plenty of people making noise about it. But my problem comes from there not being a peep about it from the official twitter accounts or the Hootsuite blog. Of course I don’t know what has happened yet to cause my account to be compromised and in the meantime I have changed every password I can and have disconnected every social media account from my Hootsuite pro account until further notice. Not too long ago Hootsuite employed the annoying CAPTCHA system before you could login to your account. And my faith in them was bolstered by the recent announcement of $165 Million in new VC funding.
I understand these things happen and I’m a forgiving guy. But just let me know what is going on please?!
But now after spending about 2 hours cleaning up this mess and explaining to angry clients what has happened, I don’t have the same enthusiasm. In fact I’m just really annoyed on a Sunday evening. Any other insight into this is welcomed in the comments below
UPDATE! I got hit today with this wonderfully ironic promoted tweet:
Worrying about your company’s social media security? Here’s a guide that will help: http://t.co/IjZ2CUK6iZ
— HootSuite (@hootsuite) August 15, 2013
Here are some other Tweets about the Hootsuite Hacking of late:
Think my @Hootsuite just got hacked. It’s spitting junk spam links to all the accounts I manage. Anyone else? Locking down.
— jeff lee (@JeffLee) August 19, 2013
Seems my HootSuite got hacked. Looking to fix it.
— Binyamin Goldman (@bzgoldman) August 19, 2013
So @hootsuite @HootSuite_Help just read there are 3rd party apps thats hacking your software, i just got hacked thru about 25 accts #sucks
— Jason Caston (@jasoncaston) August 19, 2013
Hey @hootsuite, fix your sheeeeeetttt
— iJustine (@ijustine) August 18, 2013
So far @nypostbiz @JReidPost & @NYPost_Mets all hacked by #SEA by means of @hootsuite (per hacked tweets).
— Brian Ries (@moneyries) August 13, 2013
My Hootsuite just got hacked. So pay attention Hootsuite users.
— Sam Clay (@Thrungus) August 13, 2013
#Tweetdeck gets dropped for mobile and #hootsuite gets hacked. To hell with everything. Pro tip: I don’t recommend diets.
— Ross Chapman (@rizzface) August 13, 2013
Ahhh, the benefits of having my @hootsuite account hacked. All my networks can get spammed at once.
— Sandor Boldog (@sboldog) August 18, 2013
Sharad Moran, Director of Customer Success at @HootSuite, just told me that they didn’t get hacked… but they did. Honesty fail.
— Tim O’Brien (@tobrien) August 6, 2013
