Following a string of high-profile security breaches Twitter has sent out a warning to press agencies to prepare for even worse hacking attempts. This comes just days hackers managed to get hold of the Associated Press" Twitter account.
“There have been several recent incidents of high-profile news and media Twitter handles being compromised,” Twitter said in the memo. “We believe that these attacks will continue, and that news and media organizations will continue to be high value targets to hackers.”
One of said attacks took place on April 23rd when hackers managed to gain control over the AP Twitter handle and sent out a false tweet claiming that the White House had been under attack and that President Obama had been injured. This false tweet caused markets to tumble and caused losses of about $136 billion.
As a response Twitter said they would be introducing two-step authentication so that users can have an extra layer of security for their accounts. Though some find it mind-boggling that it took the company so long to finally decide to implement this security feature that is now so commonplace.
Source: Bloomberg | Image via Twitter