Twitter Says Hacker Group Targeted 130 Accounts
Those behind Wednesday’s Twitter hack targeted up to 130 accounts and managed to gain full control of a smaller subset.
Jul 17, 2020 at 8:50 a.m. UTCUpdated Aug 19, 2021 at 3:10 a.m. UTC
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Twitter says the group behind the "Crypto for Health" hack earlier this week had targeted more than 130 accounts.
- The social media platform said in a thread Friday morning the hackers, who are yet to be identified, gained full control of a "small subset" of accounts, using them to send tweets asking for bitcoin.
- These included verified accounts for mainstream figures including former President Barack Obama and Tesla's Elon Musk; crypto personalities Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and Justin Sun; and companies, including the Coinbase exchange and CoinDesk.
- Users sent more than $125,000 worth of bitcoin by the time Twitter got a handle of the situation and locked down verified accounts.
- Twitter is investigating whether the hacking group accessed non-public data.
- One former employee told The Financial Times the company had lax security protocols, giving full administrative control to hundreds of engineers.
- Hackers hijacked Twitter twice in 2009; at the time, the Federal Trade Commission criticized the company for "serious lapses in data security."
- Some U.S. lawmakers have been airing their concerns over the latest breach, citing the damage that might have occurred if President Trump's account had been hacked.
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