Daniel J. Lewis

Internet entrepreneur, award-winning podcaster, podcast consultant, keynote speaker

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How to fix your hacked Twitter account in 3 steps

July 8, 2012 by Daniel J. Lewis

How to fix your hacked Twitter account

Hi someone is saying terrible things about you…

No, they aren't. And don't click that link! If you've been the perpetrator, it's really easy to fix.

  1. Change your Twitter password.
  2. Revoke suspicious or unknown application access.
  3. Delete the sent direct messages.

Read on for more details.

You're not that popular

This is a popular Twitter “virus” going around. The more people you follow on Twitter, the more of these messages you'll see. I've received literally hundreds (I do mean that “literally”!) of these Twitter direct messages, and they all fall into a basic word spinning pattern:

[Hi / Hey / Hello] [someone / somebody / this user / some person] is [making / posting / saying] [nasty / horrible / really bad / terrible / very bad] [things / rumors] about you… [malicious link]

My personal favorite is, “Hi some person is making nasty things about you.” Filled with glorious grammatical errors.

Twitter-direct message DM spam

Each person who clicks this link has most likely thought the message was real, and that there was something terrible about them. Well, there could be something terrible said about you if I listed your name in here!

Fix your Twitter account in 3 steps

The fix for this is quite simple, but absolutely necessary to prevent the spread and further infection of yourself and others.

1. Change your Twitter password

Login to Twitter and change your password here (or Twitter.com > Profile menu > Settings > Password).

Twitter-change password

Some sites will disguise themselves as Twitter and try to get you to login. Always check the domain carefully before you login (twitter.com.sadlfkjsae.com is not your friend). Using a site-based password manager like LastPass can easily prevent this because it won't offer your password on domains that don't match.

2. Revoke suspicious or unknown application access

Visit your Twitter Apps page (or Twitter.com > Profile menu > Settings > Apps) and click “Revoke access” on any app you don't recognize.

Twitter-applications access

This is a list of apps that you've granted access to your Twitter account. These apps can pull some information about you, tweet or DM for you, and more.

If you accidentally revoke something legitimate, you can undo the action, or simply re-authorize the app through its own settings.

3. Delete the sent direct messages

Go to Twitter.com, click your profile menu, then click Direct messages. Delete any malicious messages that were sent from your account.

Twitter-profile menu

Depending on your followers' Twitter clients, they may never receive your accidental malicious message if you delete it before they see it.

What the malicious link does

I don't know and I really don't care. I just know that it's something very bad, and it will spam all your friends. Please kill this virus now!

Technically, you weren't “hacked”

To be hacked, someone has to be hacking you. When you or someone else clicks a malicious link, there isn't a hacker standing by waiting to get into your account. Instead, this is more like a virus or worm activated by an intentional click.

Thus, your Twitter account was compromised, not hacked. That's just my little pet peeve.

Save the world, retweet this

How to fix your hacked Twitter account in 3 steps http://t.co/V52OKiQR

— Daniel J. Lewis (@theRamenNoodle) July 9, 2012

I do not work for Twitter and I am unable to provide free support for your Twitter problems. Please contact Twitter for help.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: direct messages, DMs, hacked, help, LastPass, passwords, security, Twitter

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Comments

  1. Max Flight says

    July 11, 2012 at 10:11 pm

    Thanks, David – this is really helpful. I changed my Twitter password, deleted the offending DM’s, and revoked access by one application. However, clicking revoke access for one other application has no effect. The button never changes to Undo Revoke Access. Any ideas?

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      July 11, 2012 at 10:18 pm

      It could be the way those apps are configured.

  2. mr. Jack says

    December 30, 2012 at 4:54 am

    why the direct message cant be deleted and still continue send fake direct message from my account ?

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      December 30, 2012 at 10:08 am

      You have to revoke the access to your account (step 2). Otherwise, the malicious app will continue using your account to spam.

  3. qq says

    February 11, 2013 at 7:09 pm

    ujian nech

  4. rizqi says

    February 11, 2013 at 7:10 pm

    hey i got had a message like that but i can’t login now. what can i do ???

  5. denise says

    April 17, 2014 at 5:39 am

    i got a message like that and i click it . a few hours i cant open it .. what should i do ? . pls help plss im begging you :'(

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      April 17, 2014 at 10:43 am

      You can’t open the message? That’s fine. That indicates that the sender probably deleted it.

      The main thing is that you still go through these three steps to ensure you’re not spreading the malicious tweet.

  6. Kelsey says

    June 17, 2014 at 1:54 pm

    Hey, have you seen any hacks where a bunch of random people RAPIDLY retweet your tweet? they weren’t even followers of my boss’s twitter page. We deleted it, and it stopped, but it’s weird,

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      June 17, 2014 at 10:30 pm

      That sounds like you used a popular hashtag that was being followed and retweeted by a bunch of bots.

  7. Daisy Rios says

    January 20, 2015 at 1:49 pm

    My Twitter account is retweeting random stuff and following random people !!! And Idk what to do anymore !!! I already changed my password !!

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      January 20, 2015 at 3:29 pm

      Follow the other instructions in this post, especially revoking access to the applications.

      And then don’t click on bad links again.

  8. tom says

    March 3, 2015 at 6:32 pm

    My twitter account has been hacked and my email. Rude and weird text messages are now on my twitter page. Twitter does not remove the messages or let me get acces to my twitter account, altough they say don’t panic we can help you. Yeah right, what can i do now?

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      March 5, 2015 at 5:01 pm

      Was it hacked, or did you give away the password?

      You’ll have to work with your email provider to get your access back.

  9. Reyhan says

    March 29, 2015 at 5:08 am

    Hello. I got a virus on my Twitter account. This tweet is keep retweeting as I have! I changed my pw. I couldn’t go to apps from my iPhone or iPad. It says sorry something went wrong. Do I have to do that from a laptop or pc? Please help me. Thank you!

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      April 11, 2015 at 9:55 pm

      You need to do this from a PC or browser.

  10. Justice Brown says

    April 13, 2015 at 2:57 pm

    Hello & thank you for the steps. Will these steps also stop “fitness” tweets that are posted on my page as if I tweeted them?

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      April 19, 2015 at 6:44 pm

      If the tweets look like they’re coming from you, then you need to go through this process to revoke the malicious access.

  11. J says

    April 13, 2015 at 3:47 pm

    If I deactivate my Twitter for a little while will that help?

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      April 19, 2015 at 6:44 pm

      Deactivating will only be a temporary solution. You need to go through the above steps.

  12. Natali Diamondsun says

    April 22, 2015 at 3:06 pm

    Hey, mind to help me please? I have a problem, & I cannot fix it, nor can I found a proper solution or post about it (or am I not searching right). So few days ago my twitter started to retweet a number of unfamiliar tweets by lets say aprox 8 different accounts. Sometimes it favourites them too. Now, I have removed retweets & unfavourited them, also blocked those accounts, also unfollowed some recent followed people/sites. Completely cleaned my browser, checked for any spyware, malware, extension whatsoever to find out that it still keeps retweeting tweets from the same accounts, aprox 1 per an hour. Any idea? 🙂

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      April 22, 2015 at 4:30 pm

      Sounds like you didn’t follow the three steps above.

      • Natali Diamondsun says

        April 22, 2015 at 4:59 pm

        I believe the key to my problem was the app thing, after rewoking them it has stopped. I didn’t pay attention to those because I’ve thought I don’t have any. I’m sorry for the bother, at the end your guide has helped me, so thank you. I shall be more careful in the future.

  13. Fran Garcia says

    May 16, 2015 at 4:12 pm

    Hello Daniel, I had abandoned my twitter account back in 2013 but recently received some mails saying that somebody was trying to access my account, I thought it was a mistake or twitter was trying to get me back on it. Then I entered my account an somebody was posting in Turkish?! Liking and re-tweeting… I Changed my password (reset) and made it to be double verified by code to my phone (no direct messages or apps). He’s still posting. What do I do?

    Thank you.

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      May 17, 2015 at 7:16 pm

      Did you follow all of the steps in my post?

      • Fran Garcia says

        May 17, 2015 at 10:30 pm

        Yes.

        • Daniel J. Lewis says

          May 18, 2015 at 10:18 am

          Repeat step 2 and revoke access to everything.

          Also make sure someone else’s phone number isn’t associated with your account.

          Beyond that, you’ll need to get help from Twitter.

  14. IlianaM says

    May 29, 2015 at 4:45 am

    A girl told me that she’s logged in my account from her phone and she told me that she didn’t tried to hack me..I did all the steps..and I’ve tried EVERYTHING…and she’s still logged in!What can I do?

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      May 31, 2015 at 10:31 pm

      Did you really do all of these steps, including changing your password and revoking all access? Do you truly know that she’s logged in?

      I don’t work for Twitter, so these tips in my article are the most help I can provide.

  15. Teeler says

    July 25, 2015 at 9:25 am

    hi, ive done all this the app im trying to revoke isn’t showing up, its showing up on my wall as a linked website i think, i removed the link but idk if its still compromised any help?

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      July 25, 2015 at 10:34 am

      I’m sorry, I can’t help. You’ll need to contact Twitter support.

  16. Slater says

    September 13, 2015 at 8:41 am

    Hi Dan,

    I am currently a night janitor at the College of William & Mary. And some of the IT students played around with my laptop. Now when I log into my Twitter, I can’t see any tweets but 3 or 4 a day. And I currently follow 1,000 people. My Youtube and Facebook also look distorted. Changed all my passwords, yet problem still exists. Been out of school too long to remember anything worthwhile under the INSPECT ELEMENT tab on websites.
    Any advice would help.

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      September 14, 2015 at 11:22 am

      I’m sorry. As noted, I cannot provide any support.

  17. Anderson Walcot says

    March 8, 2017 at 10:49 am

    This hacker has been of tremendous help to me, he has helped me gain access into several accounts over the years, i never reviewed him because i didn’t want people choking him up with services for my own selfish reasons but lately I came to understand that he can multitask so I here by introduce pavelnovakbreach @gmail.com Below are the list of services he offers;
    Facebook hack
    What’s app hack
    Email hack
    Kik hack
    Websites
    Password retrieval
    Cell phone clone
    Tracking locations and a list of others i can’t mention here, but contact him with whatever service you need and he will execute, even if he can’t, he knows who to refer you to…

  18. Mrityunjay says

    May 7, 2017 at 8:46 am

    Hi,

    My twitter account was hacked and I lost all my tweets, dms and my followers / following. Is there any way I can get all that info back or revert my account to what it was forty eight hours back? Twiiter help is being of no help!

  19. Prieskha Indriyani Gerard says

    September 6, 2017 at 2:56 am

    you saved me, thankyou!

  20. lee chilf says

    December 1, 2017 at 10:36 pm

    When I change password it says old one not recognised my setting’s are different been going on for long time

  21. Doris Kalinowski says

    February 4, 2018 at 4:21 pm

    Hello,i remember my experience with hackers i contacted online, i almost lost hope in finding out if my husband was loyal to me and has been loyal in our 20 years marriage, i lost a lot of funds in paying these so called hackers so i made up my mind that if i get scammed again i’ll just forget about finding out what God doesn’t want me to know, Then i saw reviews about ( mikejosh@cyber-wizard DOT com ) and decided contact him and if and if i hear any stupid excuse won’t contact anybody and just accept that God doesn’t want me to then he proved to me that he isn’t a cheat by working a sample job for me but to my greatest surprise he did the job and sent results to me fast, i was so happy but sad part was i divorced my husband, and i will drop an advise for people who wants any kind of hacking services stopped being scammed by people who impersonate being hackers, contact ( mikejosh@cyber-wizard DOT com ) for a fast and clean job. Thank me later.

Trackbacks

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    July 11, 2012 at 5:37 pm

    […] link if you receive this Twitter DM. Instead, you or the person who sent it to you needs to know how to fix a hacked Twitter account from my personal blog at […]

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