The DDOS attack, which came in waves of varying intensity and lasted several days, forced Twitter to take defensive measures that included limiting access to its API and application platform. As a result, many third-party Twitter applications were seriously affected for several days.

On Thursday, a security researcher from Arbor Networks reported that hackers are using Twitter as a means to distribute instructions to a network of compromised computers, known as a botnet.

"While digging around I found a botnet that uses Twitter as its command and control structure. Basically what it does is use the status messages to send out new links to contact, then these contain new commands or executables to download and run. It’s an infostealer operation," wrote Jose Nazario, manager of security research at Arbor Networks, on in a on Thursday.