A Twitter security issue that has been going on for more than four years, has finally been solved. The threat came to any Twitter users on the Android operating system who made specific changes to their account settings over the last four years, which would cause the “Protect Your Tweets” setting to become disabled. For example, if you simply just changed your email address that was linked to your Twitter account, any tweets intended for private audiences weren’t private, but instead open to the public.
Twitter promises that as of January 14, the issue has been fixed. They also stated that any users that were affected have been informed, although it is still unclear how many users were actually impacted.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that Twitter has been in hot water for a privacy incident that has taken place. In December, Twitter got to work to patch a flaw that allowed country codes of accounts’ phone numbers to be pulled, which showed that the IP addresses located in China and Saudi Arabia may have been trying to get a hold of the exposed data. Another incident, in the same month, gave apps the ability to read users’ direct messages. The trend continued in May and September, threatening users’ privacy and exposing personal account information.
Since Twitter’s latest incident, Apple CEO Tim Cook asked Congress to pass “comprehensive federal privacy legislation,” which would regulate personal data, allow data to be accessed or deleted, increase data security, and help understand how and why data is collected. In the meantime, as a Twitter user, it may be best to check the preferences set for “Protect your Tweets,” as well as review account privacy settings on the Twitter app.
For the full article: https://threatpost.com/twitter-android-private-tweets/141002/
