Twitter employees have been hacked for the third time this year. It seems that the hacker guessed the password for an employee's personal e-mail account and worked from there to steal secrets company documents. In otherwords the bloke had the same password for his personal email account that he had on his work account.

Twitter, which shares confidential data within Google through the Google Apps package that incorporates e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet, calendar and other Google services. Writing in his bog, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said that the personal e-mail of an unnamed Twitter administrative employee was hacked about a month ago, and through that the attacker got access to the employee's Google Apps account.

Separately, the wife of co-founder Evan Williams also had her personal e-mail hacked around the same time, Stone wrote. Through that, the attacker got access to Williams' personal Amazon and PayPal accounts. Stone said the attacks are "about Twitter being in enough of a spotlight that folks who work here can become targets." Some of the material the hacker posted online from the Google Apps documents was more embarrassing than damaging, like floor plans for new office space and a pitch for a TV show.

The hacker claims to have employee salaries and credit card numbers, resumes from job applicants, internal meeting reports and growth projections. Amongst the material were financial projections that Twitter drew up in February. The forecast envisioned Twitter generating its first revenue in the current quarter, with sales of about $US400,000 and about 60 employees.

By the end of next year, Twitter expected to employ about 345 people with annual revenue of about $US140 million. Opps.