February started with a bang for Twitterati. Over 250,000 accounts were hacked with user passwords and emails in the hands of miscreants. Luckily the Twitter security folks caught the attack in process or more accounts would have been compromised.
So if what if you were one of the unlucky few whose account was compromised?
Twitter took the first step for you. You were forced to change your password.
If you were using the same password for other accounts, you needed to change those passwords as well. You just can’t chance using the same password for all your accounts anymore. We saw that when LinkedIn got hacked last year, people also had their Twitter and Facebook accounts compromised at the same time. Get a password management software or system
You’ll also be getting more spam and phishing emails sent to the email account associated with your Twitter account.
Do you need to change your Twitter account password on your mobile devices or social media management software (like Hootsuite)? No. I know it seems counterintuitive but it works on a different system. Twitter for your mobile device or Hootsuite software gets a different kind of access token when you set it up. This security token was not directly affected by this hack.
Twitter advised all their tweeters to use strong passwords, for how to do that click here.
Twitter is also looking at adding two-factor authentication to beef up security. Two factor authentication is like when you try to access your online banking from a new device or computer and then your bank asks you to answer a security question like What is your nickname for your grandmother’s moustache? This would stop hackers from being able to tweet as you from an unrecognized computer (unless you use a really easy security question and answer).
