How Twitter users can fake a verified account – and how you can tell the difference

Verified accounts on Twitter can help you tell the difference between a real celebrity’s account, and those of imposters and over-enthusiastic fans.

In this way, you can tell the real @britneyspears apart from the likes of @britney_spears and @britneyspear.

A Naked Security reader got in touch this morning asking us how on earth a fictional character (Percy Jackson) had managed to get his Twitter account verified:

“How is an RP account verified by Twitter?”

We took a look, and sure enough there’s a blue verified badge beside @PerseusJackscn‘s name.

Has Twitter messed up, and…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.