This morning, the @foxnewspolitics Twitter feed was hacked and populated with tweets reporting the death of President Obama. A group called Scriptkiddies claimed responsibility.
You can follow a few simple steps to reduce the risk of your Twitter account being hacked.
- Social Engineering is perhaps the most common way hackers get into these accounts. Reduce your risk by limiting the number of people that know the password. Use an enterprise grade Twitter client, rather than one of the many consumer client apps available, then require all Twitter activity uses that application only. That way no-one but your security admins need know your Twitter account password.
- Take normal password precautions: Use strong passwords, and change the password regularly.
- Enable HTTPS on your Twitter account. Right now (amazingly) the default is HTTP – that means anyone using Twitter.com over a WiFi connection could potentially have their Twitter account compromised by the person sitting next to them in the coffee shop using a simple free tool such as FireSheep.
- To enable HTTPS on your Twitter account navigate to your Twitter.com profile settings and check the box:
