Credit Union’s Twitter Accounts Hacked – It Happens

It’s been in the traditional and social media news a lot this past week or so – hacked Twitter accounts. The first big story came from the hacking of the @CBSNews family of Twitter accounts. A handful of fake tweets began popping up on @60Minutes and @48Hours. Of course the accounts were shut down by CBS News as fast as possible (and as of this writing, they are still down).

And then just a few days later, the Associated Press @AP Twitter account was hacked in a very dramatic way with a tweet that read, “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.” That’s all it took to not only scramble every news organization in the world and shake the stock markets for a few minutes; but now the FBI and SEC is involved and Twitter is not commenting. It’s kind of a mess. The good news for CBS News and the Associated Press is that Twitter is helping them sort out this “Twitpocalypse!”

Of course, I’m thinking about the handful of examples I’ve seen of a credit union’s Twitter account getting hacked. And I’m pretty darn sure that CUs do not get personal attention from Twitter to help when things go so wrong. So what’s a credit union (or credit union staffer) to do if/when your account is hacked? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

  1. Immediately go to Twitter for help – you can request a “Password Reset” and hopefully that’ll do the trick.
  2. Uh, oh…it’s really bad – then you’ll need to go to Twitter and fill out a quick “Hacked Account” form that’ll escalate your problem up the Twitter ladder.
  3. Wait – Yep, wait. Until Twitter takes some sort of action, just go get some coffee and try not to cry and/or panic.
  4. Put out a statement – Once you regain control of your account, consider tweeting out a statement explaining the hacking and apologizing for any miscommunication.
  5. Delete!!! – Delete all hacked tweets, as well as any photos or videos attached to those fake tweets.

What can you do to help prevent any hacking attacks? From my experience, it comes down to two simple points:

  1. Have a social media policy in place – the work on the front end of actually creating a policy, will help execute a crisis plan in case of, say a “hacking” crisis.
  2. Change passwords often – I’d suggest changing the passwords to your social media profiles every month or so. And never, I mean NEVER set the same password for multiple accounts!

If your credit union’s Twitter account is hacked, the most important thing is to act quickly. The faster you and your team get in front of it, the faster the pain will be over. If anything, a good hacking will help make your credit union enact even stronger and more strategic social media requirements that’ll help protect your brand.

Michael Ogden

Michael Ogden

Michael has been in the social media business for more than a decade inside the credit union, technology, financial and food industries. He’s the founder of For3, LLC, which ... Web: www.for3forgood.com Details