The X-Rated Problem With Twitter’s Recent Name For Hundreds of thousands Of Users

Twitter has a brand new name, but rebranding to X could expose the social network’s users to a wave of security problems.

Twitter owner Elon Musk suddenly announced plans to drop the Twitter brand over the weekend, it what looks like one other impetuous move by the social network’s owner.

Musk said the Twitter trademark will likely be discontinued. Musk’s logo was already modified to X. “And shortly we will bid adieu to the twitter brand and, progressively, all of the birds,” Musk tweeted yesterday.

Nevertheless, it seems Musk’s rush to drop the Twitter has created security problems which have alarmed experts.

Switching to X.Com

Amongst the numerous tweets (in the event that they’re still called tweets, that’s) that Musk has put out in regards to the latest brand is that Twitter has secured the x.com website domain.

Nevertheless, the move to accumulate to x.com appears to have only happened up to now few days, meaning many DNS servers—the important thing pieces of web infrastructure that direct visitors to the proper website—are yet to meet up with the brand new ownership.

Once I went to x.com within the morning, it was still showing that:

DNS changes can take 48 hours or more to completely propagate, suggesting Musk was so impatient to make the rebranding announcement that he couldn’t wait the 2 days or so it could take for the changes to flush through the system.

Moreover, it doesn’t appear that the corporate has taken basic precautions, resembling registering similar domains that could be easily mistyped by users. For instance, xx.com is currently displaying a ‘on the market’ message. Nobody will likely be surprised to seek out out that xxx.com has pornographic content.

“Attributable to the soft launch and limited information online and even initial DNS problems, people trying to find the brand new url could potentially come across copycat sites wanting to steal Twitter log in details,” said Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at security firm ESET.

Phishing Attacks Risk

The chance that the bad guys will goal you via email is one other big concern when changing domains and names. This domain, xsafety.com, can be on the market. It could possibly be acquired by thieves trying to launch phishing attacks, pretending to be from X’s safety team.

They may send a message along the lines of “We’ve noticed your account has been hacked, please click here to treatment the issue” with users being redirected to a malicious site that steals login credentials or installs harmful software on the victim’s computer.

The rushed Twitter rebrand makes “the right opportunity to send a phishing email requesting users to register via the brand new URL,” said Moore. “This might trick multiple users into handing over their credentials without their usual level of due diligence.”

Moore urges Twitter users to stay vigilant, especially in the approaching days when the news in regards to the brand’s launch spreads. “People need to recollect to all the time err on the side of caution especially when presented with a log in request via an unsolicited email,” he said.

Twitter doesn’t have a contact person for media inquiries. Contact email is a poop-emoji.