City
Epaper

Twitter turns off tweeting via SMS after CEO's hacking

By IANS | Updated: September 5, 2019 09:30 IST

After its CEO Jack Dorsey's account was hacked last week, Twitter on Thursday temporarily turned off the ability to tweet via SMSes from your smartphone.

Open in App

The ability to tweet via text is not being used most often but some users still text and have that message posted to their account.

"We're temporarily turning off the ability to Tweet via SMS, or text message, to protect people's accounts," said Twitter Support.

"We're taking this step because of vulnerabilities that need to be addressed by mobile carriers and our reliance on having a linked phone number for two-factor authentication (we're working on improving this)," it posted.

Hackers last week broke into Twitter CEO's account and posted a flurry of rogue tweets, including racial slurs.

The micro-blogging platform later said that it secured Dorsey's account which became victim of 'SIM swapping' or 'SIM jacking' where a mobile number is transferred to a new SIM card.

By taking control of Dorsey's number, hackers posted tweets via text messages on his Twitter account.

"We'll reactivate this feature in markets that depend on SMS for reliable communication soon while we work on our longer-term strategy for this feature," said Twitter.

Twitter earlier said in a statement that the phone number associated with Dorsey was compromised due to a security oversight by the mobile provider.

"This allowed an unauthorised person to compose and send tweets via text messages from the phone number," said the company.

( With inputs from IANS )

Open in App

Related Stories

NationalCybercrime complaints surge in Chennai, Rs 218 crore lost in first five months

NationalYSRCP worker arrested for objectionable placard during Jagan’s rally in Andhra's Palandu

InternationalSoroka Hospital in Beersheba suffers direct hit in missile attack: Israel Foreign Ministry

TechnologyQS Rankings 2026 features record 54 Indian institutes, IIT Delhi tops

TechnologyRecord 1,197 Indian-owned firms with over 72 billion pounds revenue now operating in UK

International Realted Stories

InternationalUS Fed to wait for meaningful signs of weakness before rate cut: Experts

InternationalSpaceX Starship 36 Explodes During Static Fire Test (Watch Video)

InternationalPM Modi gifts silver candlestand to Croatian counterpart Plenkovic, Pattachitra painting to President Milanovic

International"Gen Asim Munir can not be trusted", says former US Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad

InternationalBilingual website dedicated to 14th Dalai Lama's 90th b'day celebration innagurated