Twitter nixes tweets by text after CEO account hack

Twitter on Wednesday halted users' ability to fire off tweets via text messages as it seeks to fix a vulnerability that led to CEO Jack Dorsey's account being hijacked.

Dorsey last week was the target of so-called "SIM swap" fraud, which enables a hacker to trick a mobile carrier into transferring a number -- potentially causing people to lose control not only of social media, but bank accounts and other sensitive information.

This type of attack targets a weakness in the use of "two-factor authentication" via text message to validate access to an account, a break-in method that has grown popular in recent years.

"We're temporarily turning off the ability to Tweet via SMS, or text message, to protect people's accounts," the Twitter support team wrote on the platform.

"We're taking this step because of vulnerabilities that need to be addressed by mobile carriers and our reliance on having a linked phone number for two-factor authentication."
Some analysts say hackers have found ways to easily get enough information to convince a telecom carrier to transfer a number to a fraudster's account, especially after hacks of large databases that result in personal data sold on the so-called "dark web."