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"A researcher blew the whistle on a possible hole in Twitter's security this week when he publicly posted about a way hackers could take control of a user's account via SMS text message. Twitter has since responded, saying any vulnerabilities were patched months ago.\nThe news that Twitter accounts could be spoofed by SMS spread quickly after self-described security consultant Jonathan Rudenberg wrote a blog post explaining the issue. It's easy to send a text message from a fraudulent originating number, he says, allowing anyone who knows your phone number to post to Twitter on your behalf \u2014 and even modify account info \u2014 as long as you have tweeting via text message set up. Although Twitter allows users to set up PIN, that feature isn't available in the U.S.\nIt sounds like a giant America-sized security hole, but in a response on the Twitter's Engineering Blog, the company says not so fast. Users in the U.S. (and many other countries) post to Twitter via SMS by sending texts to a shortcode (basically a very short phone number). By the nature of how a shortcode works, it's impossible to send a fake text message to it by spoofing someone's phone number.\nSEE ALSO: Dell CEO's Daughter Booted From Twitter for Security Reasons\nHowever, not all countries have wireless providers that use shortcodes, and users must use a \"longcode\" \u2014 basically a regular phone number. In those places, Twitter offers PIN protection to guard against exactly the kind of spoofing Rudenberg points out.\nRudenberg mentions shortcodes in his post, however, and the issue appears to be that Twitter used to allow SMS posting via longcode in regions where shortcodes are available. In its posting, Twitter says it removed that ability in August.\nThat appears to have satisfied Rudenberg, who added an update to his posting, saying that the issue has been resolved. Of course, as he advises, anyone in a region that doesn't offer shortcodes should either disable posting via SMS on their account or use a PIN.\nHave you ever experienced someone spoofing your Twitter account? Let us know your experiences in the comments.Image courtesy of iStockphoto, bizoo_n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/12/05/twitter-patches-sms-security/>