Went out for dinner on a Saturday night, we come home late. I check my mail, see a request for a change of email made on my Twitter account a few hours earlier (above). I click on the link to deny the request + say it’s not me, but it’s too late: the email associated with the account, the password and even the username have all already been modified.
I file a report, which generates a The Kafkaesque Hell of Automated Email Loops, none of which ever reaches a human and none of which solves the problem satisfactorily. The investigation is closed (no action taken) and I get a lovely email asking me to rate the quality of Twitter support (speed 8/10; did we fix it? 0/10).
I create a new account with @Barry_Ritholtz, then change it to my old Twitter handle (@Ritholtz), to make sure no one else can pick it up. And I keep adding more information to the Twitter support email response.
So, if you see this message, know that @RITHOLTZWEALTHS it’s not me or the company, it’s the hackers, and it’s not me posting racist bullshit or pushing shitcoins.
In the 36 hours since the hack, Twitter support has been an exercise in frustration. From the new account, I filed an impersonation report, noting that my account was hacked and the new account (@Ritholtz) is what I use to access support. They asked for an official ID, so maybe that’s a good sign.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s caused me to change a lot of passwords, add two-factor authentication1 (2FA) everywhere, and a separate digital authenticator.
I’m way too addicted to Twitter as an information/research tool and need to find backups.
In the meantime, if you could be so kind as to file an impersonation report for @RitholtzWealths, that would be greatly appreciated. . .
__________
1. I had 2FA on Twitter until some genius thought removing it was a good marketing idea to sell monthly subscriptions.
