Twitter kills SMS-based tweeting in most countries

Twitter announced today that it has turned off the Twitter via SMS service because of security concerns, a service which allowed the social network's users to tweet using text messages since its early beginnings.

"We want to continue to help keep your account safe," the company's support account tweeted earlier today. 

"We’ve seen vulnerabilities with SMS, so we’ve turned off our Twitter via SMS service, except for a few countries."

However, as the company added, Twitter users will still be able to use "important SMS messages" to log in onto the platform and to manage their accounts.

If you were using Twitter via SMS, you can log in at https://t.co/fuPJa3nVky or download our mobile app to enjoy the full Twitter experience. To set up notifications

Web and browser: https://t.co/jya0PvArPZ

Mobile push: https://t.co/d5fUuF1ANU

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) April 27, 2020

Users who were using Twitter over SMS are advised to transition to the social network's web platform or to the Twitter mobile app "to enjoy the full Twitter experience."

For the time being, Twitter has also decided not to kill SMS-based two-factor authentication (2FA) and password verification.

Twitter previously temporarily turned off the users' ability to tweet via text messages between September 4 and September 5, 2019, to protect their accounts after Jack Dorsey's Twitter account, the company's CEO, got hacked.

"We’ve now turned this feature back on for a few locations that depend on SMS to Tweet," Twitter said. "It remains turned off for the rest of the world."

As Twitter's Communications team tweeted and Brandon Borrman, Vice President Global Communications at Twitter said at the time, "the phone number associated with the account was compromised due to a security oversight by the mobile provider" which allowed the attackers to compose and send tweets via SMS using Dorsey's phone number.

An update: The phone number associated with the account was compromised due to a security oversight by the mobile provider. This allowed an unauthorized person to compose and send tweets via text message from the phone number. That issue is now resolved.

— Brandon Borrman (@bborrman) August 31, 2019

In February, Twitter discovered and fixed an issue actively exploited by attackers to match specific phone numbers to their corresponding Twitter accounts using a large network of fake accounts.

During October 2019, Twitter also revealed that some users' phone numbers and email addresses provided for account security like 2FA may have been used accidentally for ad targeting.

"No personal data was ever shared externally with our partners or any other third parties," Twitter said at the time. "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."