A Twitter account hacked, hijacked, renamed repeatedly and gone

I had been on My Twitter handle @sunilrajguru since 2009 and have Tweeted more than 15K Tweets, with more than 5K followers, but all that has just vanished.

I had given my email ID and mobile number as a safeguard but don’t remember whether I did opt for a two factor authentication.

It all started when I got a mail saying someone tried to change my password…

Suspicious Yahoo Twitter

So I went to change my password, but I found I couldn’t even login to Twitter

Then I got this message saying my email ID had already been changed…

Address change

So now I couldn’t use my old email ID or mobile No. to change any details or change PW, they couldn’t be found.

I complained to Twitter Support Hacked Account, got a reply and further replied with the extra details.

Meanwhile, my handle vanished.

Account doesnt exist

Then my followers reported following an account which they never followed. When they clicked the link to my profile, their mobile cache showed my old account which got immediately refreshed to this…

Hacked Account Renamed

Same joining date. Same followers. A lot of my followers reported getting this when they clicked my profile.

So it appears my account was Hacked, Hijacked & Renamed.

Then I got an email from Twitter saying that they couldn’t locate my account or other details…

Twitter can't find

And this person, thanks to his or her hacking skills, gets 5K followers for free.

And I lose my 15K Tweets!

Identity Theft is one thing, this is a taking over of someone’s identity and renaming it to their own!

All in all a neat trick!!!

Post Script…

The hacker keeps changing the name of the handle multiple times, so I can’t keep track.

For Twitter Support it should show as one continuous account from 2009-20, but apparently it doesn’t, so nothing much can be done by the user!

Meanwhile I am off Twitter, but opened another account in my name in case I ever decide to get active again and no-one else takes my username.

Also the highest ReTweets I got for a single Tweet was in excess of 3000. That has been preserved thanks to good ole Wayback Machine.

3200 Retweets

Also one from 2010, the earliest it captured

Twitter 2010

Harrowing tale from another tech journo…

The day my Twitter account was hacked and left to rot out in the sun