Twitter aware of onMouseOver hack for months, claims 17-year-old who exposed it

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, web 2.0

A 17-year-old schoolboy from Australia has taken the blame for the onMouseOver JavaScript Twitter exploit that caused havoc for a few hours on Wednesday.

Disclaiming innocence, Pearce Delphin -- who has the coolest name in the world -- says that he only discovered the vulnerability. "I did it merely to see if it could be done ... that JavaScript really could be executed within a tweet," he told AFP via email. The self-replicating worm came later, with the Guardian reporting that it was originally crafted by Masato Kinugawa and refined by Magnus Holm. Within hours, many mutations appeared -- shortly after, the Twitter offices in San Francisco groggily awoke, and the exploit was swiftly fixed.

Most importantly, however, Pearce says that Twitter knew about the problem for 'months.' It's not clear whether Pearce is talking authoritatively -- he might simply be stealing someone else's thunder -- but I'm sure Twitter will be quick to respond if he's wrong.

Update: Twitter actually fixed the bug last month, but seemingly made another change recently that brought it back.

Twitter aware of onMouseOver hack for months, claims 17-year-old who exposed it originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 22 Sep 2010 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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