Out to dinner on a Saturday evening, we come residence late. I examine my mail, see an electronic mail change request made to my Twitter account hours earlier (above). I click on by the hyperlink to disclaim the request + say this isn’t me, nevertheless it’s too late: The e-mail related to the account, the password, and even the username have all been already modified.
I file a report, which generates a Kafkaesque hellscape of automated e-mail loops, none of which ever attain a human and none of which satisfactorily resolve the difficulty. The inquiry is closed (no motion taken) and I get a stunning electronic mail asking me to rank the standard of the Twitter Help (Timeliness 8/10; Did we resolve the difficulty? 0/10).
I create a brand new account with @Barry_Ritholtz, then change it to my outdated Twitter deal with (@Ritholtz), to verify nobody else can seize it. And I maintain including extra data to the e-mail response from Twitter Help.
So for those who see this put up, remember that @RITHOLTZWEALTHS shouldn’t be me or the agency, it’s the hackers, and that’s not me posting racist crap or pushing shitcoins.
Over the 36 hours for the reason that hack befell, Twitter Help has been an train in frustration. From the brand new account, I filed an impersonation report, noting that my account was hacked and the brand new account (@Ritholtz) is what I’m utilizing to entry assist. They requested for a authorities ID, so perhaps that’s an excellent signal.
If there’s a silver lining, its that this led me to alter numerous passwords, add two-factor authentication1 (2FA) all over the place, and a separate digital authenticator.
I’m approach too hooked on Twitter as a information/analysis software and want to search out backups.
Within the meantime, for those who could be so sort as to file an impersonation report for @RitholtzWealths it could be enormously appreciated . . .
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1. I had 2FA on Twitter till some genius thought eradicating it was an excellent advertising and marketing thought to promote month-to-month subscrtiptions.