The Latest in IT Security

Naoki Hiroshimas recent loss of his single-letter Twitter handle @N to hijackers who socially engineered their way across multiple services was a stark reminder that theres a human element to security on the internet: without touching a line of code, the perpetrators allegedly took four digits of a credit card provided by a PayPal customer service representative and gave them to another rep at hosting company GoDaddy as proof of identification. In response, GoDaddy has now said on Twitter that it now requires eight credit card digits to access an account — previously, it required six — and will lock out callers after three attempts. For Hiroshima, the change comes too late For Hiroshima, the change comes too late: he still doesnt have access to his pilfered Twitter account, which he agreed to release to the attackers after they threatened to interfere with websites he was running.