Twitter probes suspected user data leak

Twitter is investigating the release of what appear to be thousands of user account passwords and email addresses.

"We are currently looking into the situation. In the meantime, we have pushed out password resets to accounts that may have been affected," Twitter spokesman Robert Weeks told ZDNet UK's sister site CNET News in an email. "For those who are concerned that their account may have been compromised, we suggest resetting your passwords and more in our Help Center."

The user data, so vast that it took five Pastebin pages to post, was released on Monday and blogged about on Airdemon.net, putting the number of accounts affected at 55,000 or more. It is unclear who posted the data, and why.

For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see Thousands of Twitter passwords exposed on CNET News.