On Sunday, Outlook magazine was left mighty embarrassed when its OSM (Outlook Social Media) app users realised that the app had got access to their Twitter accounts and was sending out tweets in their names.
This was done in the case of users who had earlier used the Outlook app to cast a vote for The Outlook Social Media Awards event.
Sample this:
So @Outlookindia OSM accounts app tweeted this from my account: pic.twitter.com/pVvO9PaGSl
— Barbarian Indian (@barbarindian) September 10, 2016
WTF. Outlook OSM award app is doing this. @Outlookindia @support @Raheelk pic.twitter.com/1oJ0sVq1RO
— Nikhil Narayanan (@nikhilnarayanan) September 11, 2016
.@Support @TwitterIndia I didn’t tweet this 👇🏼how could this happen? pic.twitter.com/c7pEwLISiK
— Rahul Mahajan (@TheRahulMahajan) September 11, 2016
The organization was widely slammed by Twitter users after the hack was noticed:
if u hav voted for Outlook OSM awards, go to twitter settings and immediately remove access to app named osm-awards by Outlook #SocialFsckup
— Tinu Cherian Abraham (@tinucherian) September 11, 2016
If someone else’s account has also been hacked by @Outlookindia app pls let me know. They used hashtag #SocialFsckUp #ArmchairMorons
— Sumit Nagpal (@Sumit_Nagpal) September 11, 2016
Seems some app which had @twitter permission got hacked. TL is full of automated tweets w/ hashtag #SocialFsckup #ArmChairMorons @Support
— Kanchan Kumar (@kanchankumar) September 10, 2016
Outlook was accused of hacking into people’s accounts and not maintaining transparency:
what about ur transparency? You are hacking people’s @TwitterIndia accounts and posting fake tweets #SocialFsckUp https://t.co/yQy6cTHvyA
— Sumit Nagpal (@Sumit_Nagpal) September 11, 2016
Revoke access and report @outlook apps for posting unauthorized tweets frm your a/c. #SocialFsckup #ArmChairMorons pic.twitter.com/TctrClRBo8
— Prakash Sharma (@India_Policy) September 11, 2016
While others questioned the privacy settings of Twitter:
Question is not only that outlook spammed from various TLs. How did @TwitterIndia compromise our privacy and what all can they access??
— shilpi tewari (@shilpitewari) September 11, 2016
@Raheelk @TwitterIndia Many account seems to be hacked. There are automated tweets with hashtag #ArmChairMorons & #SocialFsckup Please check
— Arshad (@CoorgRocker) September 10, 2016
Outlook later acknowledged the mistake and was quick to post an apology, blaming a ‘hacking’ for the incident.
We regret the inconvenience caused! pic.twitter.com/8ttREgR7Nq
— OSM Awards (@OsmAwards) September 11, 2016
The organisation says it has fixed the glitch that had caused the problem and assured users that no private data was compromised in the hack.
Feature Image Source: Twitter