Twitter has warned certain users of a state sponsored attack through an email.
The alert warned some users that the hackers, who are reportedly backed by foreign governments, have tried to gather sensitive data including phone numbers, email addresses, and IP addresses of victims.
The hackers have reportedly targeted cryptographers, security researchers, activists, journalists and a Winnipeg-based nonprofit called Coldhak.
Warnings about a potential attack on accounts have been issued by social media giants like Google and Facebook before.
In 2013, Twitter alerted users about security breaches, when it emailed more than 200,000 users about their Twitter passwords and email addresses having been stolen.
The Financial Times cited software security Mark Wodrich’s tweet as saying: "Remember the day when ‘state-sponsored actors‘ meant the national performing arts company doing Shakespeare in the park?"
State sponsored attacks have become a growing concern amongst countries as they are conducted by some of the most well funded attackers.
Previously, around 22 million personnel profiles of the US Department of Homeland Security were breached in an attack, and state sponsored Syrian Electronic Army targeted Skype and major newspaper websites.
