Twitter follows Facebook in adding 'https' security in battle against hackers

As fraudsters eye up social networks, the industry fights back. From now on, Twitter users will have the option to set the use of “https” as a default option for the micro-blogging site.

Https, sitting at the beginning of an internet domain address as a ‘Secure Sockets Layer’, will protect users who access Twitter over unsecured WiFi internet connections. Facebook recently included the same among its options.

Twitter has been available to access at https://twitter.com for some time, but now it’s possible to set this as a default by going into your settings and checking the box marked “Always use https”.

“This will improve the security of your account and better protect your information if you’re using Twitter over an unsecured Internet connection, like a public WiFi network, where someone may be able to eavesdrop on your site activity. In the future, we hope to make https the default setting,” Twitter wrote on its blog.

People who access Twitter on their mobiles will still need to log in manually with the https setting, however, even if they have set it up as standard on their computers. Twitter hopes to fix this soon so this won’t be necessary.