The Twitter accounts of three CBS brands, namely 60 Minutes, 48 Hours and a Denver news affiliate were hijacked and later suspended this weekend. The hacking of these three accounts of the foremost commercial broadcasting television group has again put forward the importance of two- factor authentication for passwords. This is not an isolated incident as the security of a number of media groups and other corporations have been compromised recently.
The hackers who hacked into CBS, tweeted political messages like “The American people must stop their government, before the whole world is destroyed,” and “the Syrian army fights for all humanity”. They also suggested that the bombers in the recent incident at Boston are professionals protected by the US government itself. Under this kind of situations, the importance of setting a secured password for an account cannot be ignored any more. In the past, the hackers have hijacked the Twitter accounts of groups like Burger King, Jeep and even MTV. So it appears that a two- factor authentication that can make a password hard for a hacker to crack has to be used for more security.
It is being said that Twitter is working to provide its users with a two-factor authentication of passwords. This method is currently being used by the likes of Google and Facebook, where a onetime unique security code is sent to the user’s mobile as a normal text message or as a notification. Generated by hardware tokens, this special code is to be entered along with the usual password for logging in. But still most people neglect using this method of authentication even though it provides a better security. This can be due to laziness or just because of friction with their usual methods. The idea of waiting for a message on the phone before logging in takes time and thus deters people from using this process.
People not using two-factor authentication, should ideally use a strong and complex password, using random and special characters, for safety. The same password should never be used for two sites as these makes one more vulnerable. These small steps can go a big way to safeguard an account against a hacking attack. But unless people get more cautious and aware, the hackers will continue to create major problems.