Biggest security benefits, risks with new Meta, Twitter verified identity subscriptions
-
Loading... - Madison Pearce
- 24 Feb 2023
- 68 Views
- 0 Like
- 0 Comment
As Twitter and Meta Platforms move to paid subscriptions for social media identity verification and security, the battle to stay safe online continues.
In 2022, the number of social media account takeover reports spiked 288% over the previous year, according to The Identity Theft Resource Center, a non-profit that helps educate consumers about these matters.
Meta’s new verification subscription, first rolling out overseas, offers users of Instagram and Facebook the ability to submit their government ID and get a blue verification badge for $11.99 a month on the web and $14.99 a month on iOS and Android. For that fee, users also get “proactive monitoring” for account impersonation, the company recently told CNBC.
“This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post.
The company’s new subscription service is similar to Twitter’s revamped service called Twitter Blue, which also grants users a verification badge if they pay a monthly or annual fee.
When you interact with a verified account, there’s a greater assurance that someone is who they say they are. However, this isn’t foolproof. It is possible, although difficult, to dupe the verifying systems within these social platforms. In the case of Twitter, only verified users will be permitted the benefit of SMS-based two-factor authentication.
Account impersonation is fairly simple, according to Zulfikar Ramzan, chief scientist of data protection company Aura, and that makes it the biggest security risk in social media today. “With the right profile photo and a creative misspelling of a username, anyone in the world can be impersonated, including you. That means if my followers receive a message from an imposter representing themselves as me, the imposter may be able to more easily dupe my followers into divulging sensitive information or maybe even transacting money,” he said. Read More….
