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Twitter hacked, working on two-factor authentication

Lewis Leong

Lewis Leong

  • Updated:

twitter iconOn Friday, Twitter announced via a blog post that its service was hacked, affecting approximately 250,000 users. Those affected should have received an email from Twitter notifying them of the hack. It’s a good time for everyone using Twitter to change passwords, just in case. Twitter claims that they “discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later” but that was enough time for the hackers to have compromised hundreds of thousands of accounts.

Twitter recommends that users reset their passwords and revoke session tokens for the accounts, meaning you should log out and back in with your new password after you’ve changed it. This is also a good time for users to look into password locker services like LastPass, KeePass, and 1Password. It’s a good idea never to use the same password twice so one breached account won’t lead to many breached accounts.

twitter log in pg

Twitter is also working on a two-factor authentication system to beef up its security, much like what Google, Facebook, and Dropbox already have. How this system works is that an app installed on your phone will generate a random password every minute or so, making it extremely difficult for hackers to brute-force their way into your account. While it’s nice that Twitter is working on two-factor authentication, it’s a shame it hasn’t been rolled out earlier when most of its competitors already have this feature.

Twitter is still working with federal law enforcement to investigate who was behind these attacks.

Source: Twitter | The Guardian

Lewis Leong

Lewis Leong

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