Trump’s Twitter vulnerability

Joseph Bernstein
BuzzFeed.com

Donald Trump’s Twitter account is “the most powerful publication in
the world today,” said Joseph Bernstein. It’s also a “disaster waiting to
happen.” Recent weeks have shown that a single, 140-character message
from the president-elect can change stock prices and move markets,
anger foreign governments, and set off media firestorms. But like all
Twitter accounts, Trump’s “is shockingly insecure” and vulnerable to
hacking. Hacking a Twitter account doesn’t take sophisticated expertise
or “the resources of a nation-state.” In the past year, the Twitter accounts
of Mark Zuckerberg, Kylie Jenner, and many celebrities were
hacked; a number of high-profile celebrity hacks were traced to one
Saudi teenager. Imagine the possibilities. You could make a killing in the
stock market by posing as Trump and praising or bashing a company; a
hacker with a grudge could pretend to be Trump and call out an enemy
by name, unleashing attacks and threats from Trump’s 19 million followers.
Worst of all, someone could tweet, say, “Nukes on way. Sad!”
and trigger global panic. Should Trump stick to the official @POTUS
account, which has certain security protocols, such as multiple password
layers, it could lessen the danger. “But that seems unlikely.” Chances are,
@realDonald Trump will remain a hacking target—and a huge one. Scary!