Twitter Inc. has announced today that they’ve enabled two-step authentication for users of their social networking service. Like most other services offering two-step authentication, you need to give Twitter a secondary point of contact before you can enable it — in this case, a mobile phone number.

Once enabled, when you access your Twitter account from a new device or from a new location, you will need to enter an authentication code that is sent via text to your phone before you can log in or pair your new app / device.

The process to set up Twitter’s two-step authentication is rather straight forward:

  1. Visit your Twitter account settings page
  2. Select “Require a verification code when I sign in”
  3. Click on the link to “add a phone” and follow the prompts

After you enrol in login verification, you’ll be asked to enter a six-digit code that Twitter sends to your phone via SMS each time you sign in.

Will you enable two step auth for Twitter? Do you think it’s a hassle or necessary evil in today’s world? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Twitter Blog.

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    Matthew

    I’ll certainly be turning this on, though I’m disappointed to see that Twitter has gone down the SMS route. A phone app (like Google Authenticator) would have been a lot nicer and far more secure.

    Finn

    Hmm.. twitter sms works on telstra and optus as far as I can tell, having just activated 2 factor on my telstra mobile just now (optus is also in the dropdown list of phone network)

    Fred

    Poor little Twitter, no business model, dumb decisions on 4rd party apps that have actively turned people off, and now making it even more difficult for people to use the service. Just need to try charging for it to complete the path to irrelevance.

    ‘Two factor’ authentication is just a dumb idea that actively puts people off. No, you have no right to my phone number, my real name, or anything similar. Get rid of ‘authentication’ entirely, as soon as possible.

    Jesse Kinross-Smith

    Does not support Optus yet according to twitter.

    Wolf Cocklin

    Except it uses Twitter SMS, which means no verification if you aren’t on Telstra.

    Further I fail to see how this will work for a corporate account with multiple users having access, but that could be just my lack of coffee today.