Twitter CFO's account compromised

SAN FRANCISCO -- Looks like somebody forgot to turn on their two-factor authentication.

Twitter's chief financial officer, Anthony Noto, had his Twitter account compromised Tuesday afternoon.

It was "sending spam Tweets," said Jim Prosser, Twitter spokesman.

"We've locked the account down and deleted the Tweets. There's no indication any account information was accessed," he said.

Links to spam sites were embedded into direct replies made to Twitter users, using Noto's account.

CNBC reported that some 296 tweets were sent in an eight-minute period.

Noto appeared to quickly regain control over his account, but not before multiple screen shots of the tweets began winging their way across the Internet.

It's possible that the spam links were not the result of human hackers gaining access to the account but instead a malicious computer program.

"Occasionally, a third-party application can have a bug that causes unexpected behavior," Twitter says in its Support Center. "If you see strange behavior, changing your password and/or revoking connections will stop it, as the application will no longer have access to your account."

The Twitter account for Newsweek was also compromised on Tuesday. In that case, it was by supporters of ISIS, and included a threat sent to first lady Michelle Obama.

The profile and banner photos have been swapped out by a group called CyberCaliphate, along with the following tweet: "Bloody Valentine's Day #MichelleObama! We're watching you, you girls and your husband! #CyberCaliphate"