Twitter relaunched the verification system in May, an option that allows users to request the classic blue badge. The new system adds more specific criteria so that accounts can be verified, thus avoiding the problems caused in 2017 by awarding the badge to users who did not meet the requirements and promoted violence. However, it appears that the new verification process is also having problems. Twitter itself has confirmed that they verified several fake accounts by mistake .
As the social network has commented to Daily Dot, the verification was wrongly approved. The accounts have already been suspended or deleted, and all of them have lost the blue verification badge that is placed next to the username.
Twitter user @ conspirator0 has been able to closely follow 6 of the accounts that were verified by mistake. None of them met the requirements imposed by the new system that the social network continues to use. Among the requirements, the accounts must be real, show activity and belong to one of the eligible categories.
The fake accounts are part of a botnet that created more than 1,000 on the social network . It can be seen that they have been created “en masse” during the month of June, with profile images taken from the internet or created using artificial intelligence, as stated by the aforementioned user. The accounts followed each other to appear a real following.
Post Spam: the target of verified fake accounts
Apparently, the objective of these accounts was to publish Spam through tweets with links that could lead to malicious websites. Being a verified account, a user can have more confidence and click on the link. In most cases, the pages install malware on the device or force you to enter personal data to seemingly win a prize.
How these accounts have been able to pass Twitter's verification requirements is still anyone's guess. According to Alex Stamos, former director of Facebook security, the hackers could have bribed or bought the personnel in charge of managing the verifications . Each country has a department that is in charge of reviewing the process. In this case, all accounts have been created in Turkey.
Twitter keeps its new verification system active, which grants the blue badge to accounts of companies, brands, organizations, news sites or journalists, celebrities and influencers, government representatives, among others.
