A vulnerability in the popular microblogging Twitter service remains unfixed and can be used by criminals to hijack accounts or redirect users to malicious Web sites, a developer claimed today.

James Slater, a software developer who blogs on the site of David Taylor, a U.K.-based search optimization specialist, said that Twitter has not successfully plugged a hole he disclosed yesterday.

The cross-site scripting bug in Twitter allows hackers to insert malicious JavaScript into tweets simply by adding code to a field of an API (application programming interface) used by third-party Twitter application developers.

Developers use the API to direct Twitter users to their Web sites by embedding links in tweets created with their software. The link appears in the text at the bottom of each tweet, such as "37 minutes ago from Tweetie," where Tweetie is the third-party application.

Shortly after Slater revealed the vulnerability Tuesday, John Adams, of Twitter's operations staff, said the service had quashed the bug. However, today, Slater said the vulnerability had not been fixed.

More: http://computerworld.com/s/article/9137164/