#Twitter beefs up security on big-name accounts ahead of US election

Twitter is beefing up its security ahead of November’s US presidential election — a bid to avoid another debacle like the bitcoin scam earlier this year, which saw the accounts of Joe Biden and Barack Obama get hijacked by hackers.

“As we learn from the experience of past security incidents and implement changes, we’re also focused on keeping high-profile accounts on Twitter safe and secure during the 2020 US election,” Twitter said in a blog post.

Moving forward, accounts that Twitter designates as high-profile will be required or recommended to implement security measures including two-factor authentication and strong passwords.

High-profile accounts will include members of the executive branch and Congress, governors and secretaries of state, presidential campaigns as well as “major US news outlets and political journalists.”

People with these accounts will receive a prompt from Twitter urging them to make the security changes.

Twitter earlier this summer fell victim to the biggest breach in its history, which saw a 17-year-old Florida teen mastermind a phishing attack on its most prominent accounts, including Elon Musk and Kanye West, as part of a sweeping cryptocurrency scam.

Other accounts that were compromised included those of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, as well as the corporate account for Apple.