Image via Complex Original
This morning news broke that Tumblr, the ever-growing, popular microblogging platform, was hacked by GNAA, an "established trolling group that makes a hobby of 'crapflooding' blogs and trolling media organizations for laughs." The worm quickly spread and hit nearly 10,000 blogs, including USA Today, CNET, The Verge, and others (CNET is now reporting that Tumblr has resolved the issue).
In an interview with Adrian Chen of Gawker, a rep from GNAA explained that Tumblr was warned about possible faults in its security system weeks prior.
"We contacted Tumblr about this weeks ago and nothing came of it. This was a serious issue that needed to be fixed. Someone would have done a lot worse than just posting a message over and over if they didn't fix it right away ... I do know that no accounts were compromised, it was purely a 'spam thing."
As expected, Twitter lit up with an assortment of reactions as the virus (aka the Tumblr Worm) spread in real time. Here are some of our favorites.
@TheMatthewKeys
The Deputy Social Media Editor at Reuters broke the news.
@TomDanTheRock
We're guessing engineers were probably too busy checking whatshouldwecallme instead of updating the site's security.
@tumblr
Not the best way to start the week.
@Gary_Niger
The hacking collective, GNAA, who infiltrated Tumblr was live tweeting its destruction.
@verge
Trolls gonna troll, bro.
@NinjaskillzCA
Ninjas typically know what they're talking about. So, yeah, stay off Tumblr.
@Choire
Science fiction come to life!
@bluechoochoo
Who doesn't love a tantalizing emo thread?
@Rudie_V
"Ugly" might be putting it mildly Rudie. Word to the Tumblr enginners.
@ankit_appy
9,000 hacked accounts and rising. Not cool, GNAA.
@MelissaObleada
Seems like Melissa learned the hard way. Bummer.
@allisonweiss
We were wondering the same thing too.
@weareyourfek
Maybe the Mayans were right. #enddays
@kitigosu
We should probably cc Bieber Nation, too, @kitigosu.