Hey you, get off my cloud

Twitter has suffered an embarassing security lapse after a hacker stole hundreds of confidential documents and released them in the blogosphere.

Explaining the break-in, Twitter CEO Biz Stone writes: "About a month ago, an administrative employee here at Twitter was targeted and her personal email account was hacked. From the personal account, we believe the hacker was able to gain information which allowed access to this employee's Google Apps account which contained Docs, Calendars, and other Google Apps Twitter relies on for sharing notes, spreadsheets, ideas, financial details and more within the company."

Stone goes on to say: "This attack had nothing to do with any vulnerability in Google Apps which we continue to use. This isn't about any flaw in web apps, it speaks to the importance of following good personal security guidelines such as choosing strong passwords."

Nonetheless, a cautionary tale for any financial services firm thinking of using cloud-based services for storing and sharing documents.