TweetDeck Hack Causes Retweet Headaches All Over Twitter

TweetDeck, Twitter's (NYSE: TWTR) real-time tracking, organizing and engagement tool, might have been hacked.

Users were originally told to log out of TweetDeck and log back in to "fully apply the fix" that Twitter believed it had implemented.

Minutes later, TweetDeck published another tweet, informing users that the service had been taken down.

A security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.

— TweetDeck (@TweetDeck) June 11, 2014

We've temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today's earlier security issue. We'll update when services are back up.

— TweetDeck (@TweetDeck) June 11, 2014

This raises some questions: did Twitter make a mistake? Did the company assume that TweetDeck was fixed, only to realize moments later that it was not?

Related Link: Twitter Is a 'Dangerous Tool' For CEOs - And Everyone Else

TweetDeck then posted another message to announce that the service was back online:

We've verified our security fix and have turned TweetDeck services back on for all users. Sorry for any inconvenience.

— TweetDeck (@TweetDeck) June 11, 2014

The service may be up and running, but that doesn't mean the headaches are over.

According to Business Insider, the hack (if that's what it actually turns out to be) has caused a retweet problem for some users. More than 38,000 users have inadvertently retweeted a small, heart-shaped image.

Thus far, there have not been any reports indicating that users' personal data was stolen Wednesday. In fact, a hack may not have occurred at all.

According to USA Today, Twitter shut down TweetDeck after failing to plug a security vulnerability.

Vulnerabilities are common in the digital age, but not all of them result in actual hackings. Sometimes the vulnerability simply needs to be fixed to prevent the possibility of an attack.

That could be what happened here, but no one will know for sure until Twitter releases more information. Shares of Twitter are down less than one percent Wednesday afternoon.

Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.