Twitter Adds Extra Security Ahead Of US Election

Twitter has activated extra security protections for politicians and key figures in the upcoming US election.

The election-related accounts, which include politicians and journalists, will see immediate changes to security features such as mandatory strong passwords.

The move follows a major hack of a range of high-profile Twitter accounts in July.

Twitter said it had learned “from the experience of past security incidents” .

Political accounts

The accounts affected include the US executive branch and Congress, US governors and secretaries of state, presidential campaigns and political parties, major US news outlets and political journalists.

The accont of US president Donald Trump is reportedly not affected, as Twitter already has significant extra internal security measures in place for it.

The accounts will be required to use a strong password, with those with a weak password obliged to update it the next time they log in.

Password reset protection will be enabled by default for the accounts, requiring the account to confirm an email address or phone number to initiate a password reset.

The accounts will also be encouraged, but not obliged, to enable two-factor authentication, Twitter said.

Internal security

Twitter said it plans to implement “additional proactive internal security safeguards” for the accounts in the next few weeks, including more sophisticated detections and alerts to improve responses to suspicious activity.

The upcoming changes also include increased login defences and account recovery support, Twitter said.

It called the measures a “critical preventative step”.

“You will continue to see us introduce new protections and features to help safeguard accounts on Twitter,” the company said in an advisory.

The unprecedented July hack saw the accounts of Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Kanye West and others hacked to promote a cryptocurrency scam.

A Bognor Regis man was later arrested in connection with the incident.