Twitter to journos: the hacking won’t stop until you take action

Twitter has sent out a memo warning journalists that the high-profile hacks currently plaguing the industry are unlikely to stop any time soon.

The memo comes in the wake of a hack which saw the Associated Press account tweet that there had been an explosion at the White House and revelations that pro-Syrian government hackers had compromised The Guardian’s account.

The former of those attacks caused panic in the US stock markets and saw the Dow Jones fall 143 points.

In the memo, Twitter pleads with journalists to help it keep their accounts secure. “Help us protect you”, it says at one stage. Some of the steps it urges make sense too. Changing passwords regularly, using a password manager so that you can have long, randomly generated passwords and keeping email accounts secure all make sense.

Others though suggest that the social network may have been grasping at straws. For instance the suggestion that media organisations have one PC be set aside for Twitter use and Twitter use only is more than a little ridiculous. Because, you know journalists almost never need to tweet from the field or access the internet at the same time as they’re tweeting.

Until Twitter releases that two-factor authentication it’s been working on, the best thing any media organisation can do is stay vigilant. It’s much more difficult for someone to slip through the gates if you’ve put a decent lock on them.

The full memo below:

Please help us keep your accounts secure. There have been several recent incidents of high-profile news and media Twitter handles being compromised. We believe that these attacks will continue, and that news and media organizations will continue to be high value targets to hackers.

What to be aware of:

These incidents appear to be spear phishing attacks that target your corporate email. Promoting individual awareness of these attacks within your organization and following the security guidelines below is vital to preventing abuse of your Twitter accounts.

Take these steps right now:

Change your Twitter account passwords. Never send passwords via email, even internally. Ensure that passwords are strong — at least 20 characters long. Use either randomly-generated passwords (like “LauH6maicaza1Neez3zi”) or a random string of words (like “hewn cloths titles yachts refine”).

Keep your email accounts secure. Twitter uses email for password resets and official communication. If your email provider supports two-factor authentication, enable it. Change your e-mail passwords, and use a password different from your Twitter account password.

Review your authorized applications. Log in to Twitter and review the applications authorized to access your accounts. If you don’t recognize any of the applications, contact us immediately by emailing ______@twitter.com.

Help us protect you. We’re working to make sure we have the most updated information on our partners’ accounts. Please send us a complete list of all accounts affiliated with your organization, so that we can help keep them protected.

Build a plan. Create a formal incident response plan. If you suspect your organization is being targeted by a phishing campaign or has been compromised by a phishing attack, enact the plan. Contact us immediately at ______@twitter.com with the word “Hacking” in the subject. Include copies of suspected phishing emails.

If you lose access to an account, file a Support ticket and email the ticket number to ______@twitter.com.

Moving Forward:

Review our security guidelines to help make sure your accounts are as secure as possible.

Talk with your security team about ensuring that your corporate email system is as safe as possible. A third-party provider that allows for two-factor authentication might be a safer solution. Strong security practices will reduce your vulnerability to phishing.

Consider the following suggestions:

Designate one computer to use for Twitter. This helps keep your Twitter password from being spread around. Don’t use this computer to read email or surf the web, to reduce the chances of malware infection.

Minimize the number of people that have access. Even if you use a third-party platform to avoid sharing the actual Twitter account password, each of these people is a possible avenue for phishing or other compromise.

Check for signs of compromise. Checking your email address and authorized apps weekly or monthly can help detect unauthorized access and address the problem before access is abused.

Double-check the email address associated with your Twitter accounts:
https://twitter.com/settings/account

Review the apps authorized to access your accounts:
https://twitter.com/settings/applications

Change your password regularly. Changing your Twitter password quarterly or yearly can reset the clock if a password has leaked.

Using a Password Manager integrated into your browser can help prevent successful phishing attacks.

Third-party solutions such as 1Password or LastPass, as well as the browser’s built-in password manager, will only auto-fill passwords on
the correct website. If the password manager does not auto-fill, this might indicate a phishing attempt.

Password managers make it much easier to use a very strong password. Very difficult passwords will discourage memorization, which will greatly reduce the chances of being phished.

Be certain to set a master password, since otherwise passwords may be stored unprotected.

Don’t hesitate to email us if you need assistance.