tweets[1], plaintext
passwords[2], and personal
information[3] for hundreds of
thousands of its users, here is a new security blunder social
networking company Twitter admitted today.
Twitter announced that the phone numbers and email addresses of
some users provided for two-factor authentication (2FA) protection
had been used for targeted advertising purposes—though the company
said it was ‘unintentional.’
In a blog post, the company said an ‘error’ in its ‘Tailored
Audiences and Partner Audiences advertising system’ inadvertently
used the information provided by users for security reasons to run
targeted ads based on the advertisers’ own marketing lists.
“When an advertiser uploaded their marketing list, we may have
matched people on Twitter to their list based on the email or phone
number the Twitter account holder provided for safety and security
purposes. This was an error and we apologize,” Twitter said in a
blog post[4].
enable 2nd-factor protection, even when they don’t want to rely on
phone SMSes for receiving 2FA code and opt for security keys or
authenticator apps instead, users had no option to prevent
themselves from this error.
However, Twitter assured that no personal data was ever shared
externally with its advertising partners or any other third-parties
that used the Tailored Audiences feature.
many users were impacted by this error.
“We cannot say with certainty how many people were impacted by
this, but in an effort to be transparent, we wanted to make
everyone aware,” Twitter wrote.
“As of September 17, we have addressed the issue that allowed this
to occur and are no longer using phone numbers or email addresses
collected for safety or security purposes for advertising.”
its users for 2FA protection; however, in that case, the FTC
accused the company of intentionally using
that data[5] for advertising
purposes—which became one of the reasons FTC issued a $5
billion fine[6] against Facebook in July
this year.
References
- ^
private tweets
(thehackernews.com) - ^
plaintext passwords
(thehackernews.com) - ^
personal information
(thehackernews.com) - ^
blog post
(help.twitter.com) - ^
intentionally using that data
(thehackernews.com) - ^
FTC issued a $5 billion fine
(thehackernews.com)
Read more http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheHackersNews/~3/htiDZXuhCtA/twitter-advertising-privacy.html