Twitter turns off tweeting via SMS following Jack Dorsey hack

When Jack Dorsey gets hacked, Twitter pays attention. 

Following last week’s compromise of the Twitter CEO’s account, the company announced a major change in the name of securing the platform. Specifically, users are no longer able to tweet via SMS. 

The company announced the change in a Wednesday afternoon tweet, noting that, at least for now, the change is temporary. 

“We’re temporarily turning off the ability to Tweet via SMS, or text message, to protect people’s accounts,” reads the tweet in question. 

The company added that it felt the move necessary “because of vulnerabilities that need to be addressed by mobile carriers and our reliance on having a linked phone number for two-factor authentication (we’re working on improving this).”

The New York Times confirmed that Dorsey’s account was compromised via a service called CloudHopper, which allows users to send tweets by simply sending a text message. 

Importantly, individuals without a data plan or access to the internet rely on the ability to tweet via SMS. Twitter acknowledged this in its statement, writing that it would “reactivate this in markets that depend on SMS for reliable communication soon.”

It did not clarify what “soon” meant. 

This step, frankly, is long overdue as hackers and security researchers have repeatedly pointed out the potential risks inherent in linking accounts to phone numbers in the way Twitter has — up until today — done. 

All it took was the CEO’s account to get compromised for Twitter to do something about it.