Twitter hacking: cybersecurity, a major issue in the US presidential election - France 24

New York (AFP)

The first elements of the investigation into the spectacular piracy which victimized Twitter on Wednesday point to a mole and raise many questions about the integrity of the American presidential election or the security of the account of Donald Trump, who intends to stay on your favorite social network.

The President's account - which filters messages to 83.5 million subscribers daily without filtering - was not hacked.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Thursday that "the president will stay on Twitter" and assured that the White House was not worried about the vulnerabilities released on Wednesday.

"It is because the president's account had been deleted by a contract employee from Twitter several years ago, which had led the company to protect it in particular," the former CNBC manager said on CNBC. Facebook security and today Stanford associate professor Alex Stamos, to explain why the presidential account had been spared.

But as a sign of the enormous stake that the presidential election of November represents for the platforms, Twitter had decided for the first time in May to report publications by Mr. Trump presented as "misleading" and had warned its subscribers that they were violating site rules.

In fact, just over three months before the election, the political influence of social networks, a subject already much debated in the United States, is becoming even more one of the key themes of the campaign.

Among prominent American political figures, the accounts of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama and ex-New York mayor Michael Bloomberg were targeted by the attack on Wednesday.

This massive "hacking" led Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, to write a letter to Twitter boss Jack Dorsey.

"I am concerned that this event is not just a coordinated series of separate hacks from each other but rather a successful attack on the very security of Twitter," the senator wrote.

"A successful attack on the servers of your system poses a threat to the privacy and data security of all your users," continued Mr. Hawley, who urged the platform to turn to the Department of Justice and the FBI .

A few hours before the incident on Wednesday, the House Monitoring and Government Reform Committee had deemed it necessary to appoint a national cybersecurity official.

- Spectrum of 2016 -

If the modus operandi of this latest hacking seems very particular, the intrusion having probably been initiated by a Twitter employee according to testimony and screenshots on which Vice magazine is based, it raises the specter of the presidential campaign of 2016, which had been marred by major flaws in the security of social networks, in particular Facebook.

The group had been severely criticized for letting massive disinformation campaigns spread and for not having sufficiently protected the safety of its users.

In March 2018, the Cambridge Analytica scandal thus broke out. This British firm, which worked for the Donald Trump campaign, had misappropriated the personal data of tens of millions of users worldwide.

The Californian giant has since stepped up efforts to combat manipulation attempts on its various platforms, dismantling numerous disinformation operations.

Twitter has taken even more drastic measures in recent months, including banning political ads.

- Twitter diplomacy -

As a sign of their growing role in the American public sphere, social networks have become essential geopolitical tools, especially in times of crisis.

"For American politicians, Twitter represents a paradox," observe Heather Williams and Alexi Drew, who have just published a report on the diplomatic role of the platform for the Center for Science and Security Studies at King's College London.

"On the one hand, tweets from government officials can help shape American public discourse and offer in-depth perspectives on American decision-making to reduce misunderstandings among foreign actors," write the academics.

"But on the other hand, tweets can increase misunderstandings and create confusion during crises, creating incentives for an adversary to escalate tensions," said Williams and Drew, who urge political leaders to refrain from chirp in times of crisis.

Nuclear friction between the United States and North Korea or the US-Iranian escalation after the assassination in January of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani offer striking examples of the ambivalent role that Twitter plays in international crises.

© 2020 AFP