Hacked

         

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Imagine this: you get home from class, you plug in your laptop, you walk to the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal, you sit down and open your laptop to see what’s trending on Twitter. As you scroll through your lists you realize something isn’t right. People are sending you @replies like crazy. Your punny tweets have never been this popular before – maybe you had a stroke of genius. But then it hits you. You realize they’re replying to something you didn’t even say. Your stomach starts to turn. Your account has been hacked.

            While this may seem like every Twitter users’ worst nightmare, it can be much more damaging to big corporations. The Associated Press, Burger King, and Jeep are just a few of the big businesses whose Twitter accounts were hacked this year. The hackers of Associated Press only got out one tweet before the account was suspended. The hackers of Burger King and Jeep, however, got out quite a few tweets and even managed to change profile pictures and backgrounds.

            It isn’t until an account is hacked that people start to question the security of social media sites, like Twitter. As of now, Twitter uses a one step authentication security system. This means that all someone needs to access his or her account is a simple password. While this may seem fine for individual users, it can be scary for big companies.

            In big companies such as The Associated Press, there are often multiple people who have access to the company’s Twitter information. One password and multiple people almost begs to be hacked. Have one password given to multiple people also makes it hard to update the password on a regular basis.

            Some email sites, such as Yahoo, and some social media sites, such as Facebook, have a two-step security authentication process that many argue Twitter needs to adopt. A two-step security authentication process is an approach to authentication that requires presentation of two (or more) of the three authentication factors. The authentication factors are the knowledge factor, the possession factor and the inherence factor.

            This process can be implemented in many ways. The most common way it has been implemented recently is by logging in with a password, fulfilling the knowledge factor, and then receiving a text or a code on your cell phone and entering that into the site, fulfilling the possession factor. This would make it harder for hackers to gain access to major accounts.

            This blog explores what hacks have happened this year, how the media and social media reacted to these hacks, and tips on how to keep your accounts secure.