I have been actively using Twitter for a good three months now, and I am a bit scared as to the amount of identity issues, phishers, spam, and hacks that get through Twitter’s security…and I’m not just talking about the fake Ashton Kutcher and Lady Gaga accounts…
See for yourself, do a search on “how to hack twitter” on Google and read all the sites that mock Twitter’s security and show step by step how to access “secure” accounts. Whether or not these sites are legitimate beats me; however, the truth is there are many accounts of hacking, phishing, and spam on Twitter in the past and present.
One tweet that caught a few people’s attention was from Vodaphone, a mobile telecommunications company based out of the UK. This tweet was an obvious hack based on its sheer ridiculous; however, a tweet like this shows Twitterers and companies the risks of having an account on Twitter. Even if the hack was internally based, how many employees have access to the twitter account? Sounds to me like there are way too many gatekeepers with access to the public. If it was my IR department, access to accounts would be securely in the hands of managing officers, not the staff. This is merely one example. But what about others? (to quote the article)
“It wouldn’t be the first time that a large company has had their account compromised on the network. Fox News, Facebook, the Huffington Post and Britney Spears were all subject to a nasty hack in January 2009.”
Fox News, The Huffington Post, and Facebook, now those are serious media outlets being compromised. Britney, well, that’s a PR disaster for a different blog.
So what if a company or investor relations department is tweeting about important information, releases, figures, financials, etc? What if some hacker wants to pull a fast one, phish for passwords, and then spread false information to investors? Should tweets have disclaimers? I would say so, or at least before any IR department wants to start using Twitter as a legitimate tool for releases. Until then, I’d suggest investors stay on top of SEC filings and RSS feeds directly from the source. Don’t take everything the little blue birdie says as fact.
