Twitter admits bug exposed some Android users' protected tweets for years
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Quote:Social media network Twitter revealed today that it fixed a bug that affected users of its Android app. The bug accidentally changed the visibility of protected tweets from private to public, the company said.
The issue didn't impact all users. According to Twitter, only the following users were possibly affected:- Used the Twitter for Android app
- Had the "Protect your Tweets" option enabled
- Changed their account email address between November 3, 2014, and January 14, 2019
The bug also didn't impact users of their Web or iOS clients, although, if members changed their account's email address from an Android client, and then used other clients, they might also be affected.
The social network didn't reveal how it found the bug, but said that it already notified all users who it believes were impacted, and also reset the "Protect your Tweets" option to its original setting, hiding those people's tweets from non-followers, non-registered users, and search engines.
The company also published today a Help Center page about the bug because its engineers couldn't identify and confirm every account that was impacted in the past five years.
Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/twitter-bu...ive-years/
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Quote:A Twitter glitch left some Android users' protected tweets exposed since 2014.
The security flaw disabled the "Protect your Tweets" option for some people who changed their settings, such as updating the email address associated with the protected account, between Nov. 3, 2014 and Jan. 14, 2019, the company wrote in its Help Center Thursday.
Those using the iOS version of the app or Twitter for web weren't impacted.
Twitter fixed the issue on Jan. 14, but isn't sure how many accounts were affected, so it's recommended that you double check your settings if you're an Android user and want your tweets protected. The company is contacting people it knows were affected and reactivated the protected tweets setting for them.
The social media site was already being investigated by Irish data protection authorities over the way it tracks people when they click links, and those officials are looking into this new data breach.
"The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has been notified of this data breach and we are currently assessing its contents," the DPC said in an emailed statement.
Companies whose privacy practises are found lacking face fines of 20 million euros or 4 percent of their annual global revenue from the year before, whichever is higher, under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) -- the EU law that gives citizens more control over their personal data.
Twitter declined to add further comment.
--- From cnet.com
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• harlan4096
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22 January 19, 07:35
(This post was last modified: 22 January 19, 07:37 by Raur.)
Quote:Twitter Fixes Four Year Old Bug in Android App Exposing Private Tweets
Twitter announced today that an issue in its app for Android exposed some users’ protected tweets for over four years if they made certain changes to their account settings.
As a result, content intended only for approved followers became publicly visible.
Bug survived since late 2014
The problem caused the “Protect your Tweets” feature to become disabled for users of Twitter for Android that had it turned on and also made some modifications to their account, such as updating the associated email address.
Users fitting this profile between November 3, 2014, and January 14, 2019 - the day the issue got fixed - may be impacted by the bug, Twitter says in a post on its Help Center. iOS and Web clients are not impacted.
The company has already alerted the people known to the affected and enabled the “Protect your Tweets” setting for them. However, the exact number of accounts touched by the issue remains unestablished, and that’s why they published the announcement.
“We are providing this broader notice through the Twitter Help Center since we can’t confirm every account that may have been impacted,” Twitter says.
For the same reason, the social network tweeted about the issue to the almost 5.8 million followers of its Support account. @Twitter Support
The message does not seem to have propagated well, though, with just 73 retweets and 170 likes recorded at the moment of writing.
Twitter encourages its users to verify the current status of the tweet-protection setting in their account to make sure it is in accordance with their preferences. A full review is underway to make certain that such a problem does not occur again.
The company promises to provide more information when it becomes available and if it is sufficiently important.
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• harlan4096
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