It’s not every day that a privately-owned company’s internal financial laundry is scattered across the Web for all to see.

But that’s the unfortunate scenario microblogging startup Twitter found itself in on Wednesday after technology news site TechCrunch published a slew of the company’s confidential business documents.

The files, sent to the site by a hacker who managed to gain access to some of the company’s servers, included everything from plans to launch a Twitter reality television show to notes from its executive meetings to a detailed financial outlook from February.

Reuters tech columnist Eric Auchard provides a bit-by-bit breakdown of the financial forecast here. The outlook reveals that Twitter projected to grow to 1 billion users and rake in a $1.1 billion net profit on $1.54 billion in revenues by the end of 2013.

While Twitter co-founder Biz Stone seemed to take the news in stride, saying the financial projections are now out of date, you can bet the startup’s competitors are poring over the documents with some pleasure.

TechCrunch only published a handful of the 130 files it was sent, but the whole episode should serve as a wake-up call to startups and small businesses everywhere that there’s no such thing as too much security.

Will your business be taking any new security precautions in light of the Twitter case? Please leave your stories in the comments section.

(Photo: A padlock is seen at a closed shop in the Westminster Mall in Westminster, Colorado in this February 26, 2009 file photo. REUTERS/Rick Wilkin)