Twitter: Account hack affects 250,000 users

A quarter of a million Twitter users have had their accounts hacked in the latest of a string of high-profile internet security breaches.

Twitter's information security director Bob Lord said about 250,000 users' passwords had been stolen, as well as usernames, emails and other data.

Affected users have had passwords invalidated and have been sent emails informing them.

Mr Lord said the attack "was not the work of amateurs".

He said it appeared similar to recent attacks on the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.