Twitter has been in all sorts of controversies lately – right from the Bitcoin hacking row which compromised accounts of celebrities and tech tycoons to the recent user information misuse which landed them in trouble of paying $250 million to the Federal Trade Commission. This time around Twitter has identified a security vulnerability that might have affected some Android phones. Devices running Android OS 8 or 9 to be precise.
In a blog post, Twitter said that this security loophole only affects about 4 percent of Android devices. The other 96 percent are already immune to this hacking threat since it was patched with the October 2018 security update for devices running Android 10. If there is a malicious app installed on Android 8 Oreo or 9 Pie powered smartphone, hackers can gain access to the private Twitter data, the likes of Direct Messages. To do this the hacker could work around the Android System permissions which are in place to safeguard against any such instances.
Twitter says that so far they haven’t found any device being exploited by this hack, but they need to make sure they can protect this small pool of people from the loophole. To do this Twitter has revoked any third-party apps from accessing Twitter’s app data. This is done by adding a layer of safety other than the standard OS safeguards in place.
To protect the Android users who have Android 8 and 9 OS installed on their device, Twitter is sending out an in-app notice to such users. Updating the app yourself in the Play Store also fixes the issue if you happen to fit in the criteria.
