Twitter Has Disabled This Feature That Most People Don’t Even Use

The micro-blogging platform acted after its CEO’s account was hacked earlier this week.

Twitter’s prototype app is currently available to iOS users.

(Photo: iStock)

Twitter on Wednesday halted users' ability to fire off tweets via text messages as it seeks to fix a vulnerability that led to CEO Jack Dorsey's account being hijacked.

Dorsey last week was the target of so-called "SIM swap" fraud, which enables a hacker to trick a mobile carrier into transferring a number -- potentially causing people to lose control not only of social media, but bank accounts and other sensitive information.

"We're temporarily turning off the ability to Tweet via SMS, or text message, to protect people's accounts," the Twitter support team wrote on the platform.

Most people didn’t even know about this feature, and that’s exactly what their reaction has been to this development on the social media.

One user even inquired with Jack as to how many people even use SMS for tweeting?

Even with considerable security precautions in place, Dorsey became the victim of the embarrassing compromise when attackers hijacked his phone number and took control of his Twitter account.

This type of attack targets a weakness in the use of "two-factor authentication" via text message to validate access to an account, a break-in method that has grown popular in recent years.

Twitter earlier said in a statement that the phone number associated with Dorsey was compromised due to a security oversight by the mobile provider.

“This allowed an unauthorised person to compose and send tweets via text messages from the phone number,” said the company.

Some analysts say hackers have found ways to easily get enough information to convince a telecom carrier to transfer a number to a fraudster's account, especially after hacks of large databases that result in personal data sold on the so-called "dark web."