Twitter strengthens security ahead of US presidential elections

The social media company will now require all political and influential accounts to update their security to avoid a potentially drastic repeat of the July hack.

More safety for everyone

Social media giant Twitter has made important updates to its platform's security policy ahead of the US election, the company said in a post this week.

“We learn the lessons from past security incidents and implement the changes, focus on keeping high profile Twitter accounts safe and secure during the 2020 US election,” the company said.

As of Thursday, all election-related “high profile” accounts have been urged to activate additional security measures to protect their credentials. Privately informed accounts include all members of the US executive and Congress, governors, presidential activists, political parties, and major US political news agencies and journalists, among other political users.

Twitter said accounts will be asked to use a more complex password and to enable two-factor authentication, which provides additional security beyond just a username and password.

Additionally, a password reset option will be automatically enabled to prevent any unauthorized password changes. Other additional security measures include more sophisticated detections and alerts to help them respond quickly to suspicious activity and increased access defenses to prevent malicious account takeover attempts, the company said.

Security features aren't limited to just certain users. Anyone can take the necessary steps to ensure their privacy and information is safe on Twitter, the post states.

Bitcoin hacking spurs improvement in security measures

The security policy update comes months after a Twitter attack by a hacker - allegedly a 17-year-old Florida teenager who was later released on bail.

The hacker gained access to more than 25 high-following Twitter accounts, such as presidential candidate Joe Biden and influencer Kim Kardashian, by sending fraudulent tweets promising Bitcoin payments.

The tweets were sent from accounts that had a total of 346 million followers on Twitter and the hacker pocketed over $ 120.000 worth of Bitcoin - here the quotation in real time - from users unaware of the scam. The attack showed that Twitter's sole influence on global financial markets, politics and news could lead to enormous and irreparable damage if criminal access to the social platform were used to tweet about a political issue.

“This attack could have caused severe damage. I am actually glad that a Bitcoin profit motivated hacker got to the attack vector before much worse criminals ready to leak private data, manipulate stock prices, manipulate elections or start wars had intervened, "tweeted the co. - Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin shortly after the last episode. Let's hope the new security features avoid everything you mentioned.