Social Media
Twitter will finally let you turn on two-factor authentication without giving it a phone number
Two-factor authentication is good! SMS-based two-factor authentication? Not the best option. After countless tales of people having their phone numbers and inbound SMS hijacked by way of SIM swapping, it’s clear that SMS just isn’t the right solution for sending people secondary login codes.
And yet, for many years, it’s been the mandatory go-to on Twitter . You could switch to another option later (like Google Authenticator, or a physical Yubikey) — but to turn it on in the first place, you were locked into giving Twitter a phone number and using SMS.
Twitter is getting around to fixing this, at long last. The Twitter Safety team announced that you’ll be able to enable two-factor authentication without the need for a phone number, starting sometime today.
This news comes just a few months after Jack Dorsey’s own Twitter account was hacked (seemingly by way of a SIM swap) and a few weeks after Twitter had to admit it was using phone numbers provided during the two-factor setup process for serving targeted ads.
Some users are reporting that the setup process still requests a phone number, so it seems like this change is being rolled out rather than launching for everyone immediately.
-
Business6 days ago
UnitedHealth says Change hackers stole health data on ‘substantial proportion of people in America’
-
Business5 days ago
Tesla’s new growth plan is centered around mysterious cheaper models
-
Business7 days ago
Mood.camera is an iOS app that feels like using a retro analog camera
-
Business4 days ago
Xaira, an AI drug discovery startup, launches with a massive $1B, says it’s ‘ready’ to start developing drugs
-
Business5 days ago
UK probes Amazon and Microsoft over AI partnerships with Mistral, Anthropic, and Inflection
-
Entertainment7 days ago
Furious Watcher fans are blasting it as ‘greedy’ over paid subscription service
-
Business6 days ago
Two widow founders launch DayNew, a social platform for people dealing with grief and trauma
-
Entertainment5 days ago
Tesla’s in trouble. Is Elon Musk the problem?