Twitter has become one of the main channels of web-based communication and information, and because of this, it is necessary to protect account security to avoid identity theft. In fact, it happens more and more often that large companies, news agencies, media outlets or just journalists and influencers fall victim to attacks by hackers who first hack the account and then publish fake content.
Sometimes these are pranks by prankster friends, as happened to journalist Enrico Mentana: a friend (or “imbecile” as he called him) had stolen his smartphone to post the fake news of singer Fabri Fibra’s death. Like him, other VIPs have had problems due to access violations and have unsubscribed from the social network.
In other cases it has been political attacks, a cyberwar on social networks such as that of the Syrian Electronic Army (Sea) group attacking foreign media not aligned with the regime of dictator Bashar Al Assad. They, themselves, had managed to hack into theAssociated Press account on April 23 to post, “Two explosions at the White House, President Obama injured.” The media tam tam had been immediate: the news published by the Twitter profile of the prestigious and influential news agency had quickly gone around the world to the point that the New York Stock Exchange had collapsed with 136 billion in capitalization and 145 Dow Jones points gone up in smoke. Obviously it was fake news, disinformation, but in such cases it becomes difficult to know what is fact and what is fiction.
So, in a world where news travels by the second and where Twitter is increasingly becoming a favored news channel, there is a need to properly protect one’s account, especially for companies, media and public figures. Immediately after the White House bombing hoax, Twitter had suggested some measures to defend against hacker attacks:
– change passwords
– verify the security of the e-mail account
– pay attention to suspicious activities
– use only one computer for Twitter (and when using a different one, always log out and clear the data stored in the cache).
These are seemingly trivial recommendations, but they are very often ignored.
What is new, however, is the new dual-authentication system for login. The first step is the classic password, which in each case must be long and contain different types of characters to increase complexity. The second step is that of a temporary code that is sent as a text message to the connected phone number upon login. This can be activated from the settings under “account security.”
Again, you can never have 100% guarantees for the security of your account, however, you increase the level of protection of your account from hacker attacks by cyber criminals or from the pranks of some overly prankish friends.
