The Twitter Hacked Materials Warning Is Way Too Easy To Hack - Android

Twitter recently started been rolling out a new "hacked materials" warning for some tweets but it turns out that the message itself is reportedly susceptible to at least one easy-to-perform hack. For clarity, the new warning falls under Twitter's hacked materials policy, in line with other changes it has been making. With the change in [...]

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The post The Twitter Hacked Materials Warning Is Way Too Easy To Hack appeared first on Android Headlines.

Twitter recently started been rolling out a new "hacked materials" warning for some tweets but it turns out that the message itself is reportedly susceptible to at least one easy-to-perform hack.

For clarity, the new warning falls under Twitter's hacked materials policy, in line with other changes it has been making. With the change in place, tweets sharing materials believed to have been obtained via a hack are marked. Summarily, it adds a message reading "These materials may have been obtained through hacking" to those tweets. Now, users have discovered a way to circumvent the message. Or, at the very least, to add it to messages it shouldn't appear on.

The Twitter 'materials obtained through hacking' hack is embarrassingly easy

The problem with this hack isn't that it allows users to remove the message from Tweets altogether. In the age of misinformation, the real issue is that the hack makes it easy to alter the appearance of legitimate stories and information shared on Twitter. Namely by marking them as having been obtained through hacking. More succinctly, to make legitimately obtained information or fake news appear as though it was gained via hacking.

That could, in turn, make it easier to make fake news appear more legitimate. If hackers can determine a way to make the warning not appear instead. Or to make legitimate news appear less so. And it appears particularly easy to accomplish that.

According to the source, the method for tricking the system only requires access to an existing URL for a story that generates the warning. Then, users can specially craft a link by combining that URL with one that isn't flagged. Twitter will then read the newly-created URL as a flagged URL.

It gets worse

Perhaps worse, the trick works across all of Twitter's platforms, whether a mobile app or on the web. And the trick will, at least in some cases, crash the Android app when messages are tweeted that contain the new label. So there appears to be potential for further damage to Twitter on Android. Specifically, as a result of the way the warnings are set up.

It's not clear whether this is affecting third-party Twitter apps. But, as of this writing, Twitter has yet to respond to reports of the issue.

The post The Twitter Hacked Materials Warning Is Way Too Easy To Hack appeared first on Android Headlines.