Twitter Accounts Of Important Political Figures & Companies Hacked

Twitter accounts of several prominent political figures and celebrities were hacked on Wednesday and were used to promote a cryptocurrency scam. According to Engadget, unscrupulous individuals managed access to various verified accounts that are supposedly well protected. The victims included Barrack Obama, Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Apple and many others.

Using the hacked accounts, the criminals were able to tweet posts requesting the general public to donate bitcoin and in return, the receiver would reciprocate by giving back twice the value of the respective donation. The hack has drawn the FBI’s attention, who will be conducting their own investigation into the matter.

If your account was locked, this does not necessarily mean we have evidence that the account was compromised or accessed. So far, we believe only a small subset of these locked accounts were compromised, but are still investigating and will inform those who were affected.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020

Twitter responded to the breach by barring verified users from sending tweets until it is able to assess the situation and regain a handle on things. This hack provides a clear indication of just how unsafe the internet can be for the average Joe. But it is not yet known when the company will restore access to users of the affected accounts.

Now, that the dust has somewhat settled, Twitter claims that approximately 130 accounts were targeted but only a small subset of them were actually hacked and used to send the scammers’ tweets. According to Twitter’s own investigations, the hackers targeted its employees through social engineering, and this was how they gained access to Twitter’s admin panel.

We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020

Based on what we know right now, we believe approximately 130 accounts were targeted by the attackers in some way as part of the incident. For a small subset of these accounts, the attackers were able to gain control of the accounts and then send Tweets from those accounts.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 17, 2020

Speaking of restoring access to the affected accounts, Twitter Support said, “We’re working with impacted account owners and will continue to do so over the next several days. We are continuing to assess whether non-public data related to these accounts was compromised, and will provide updates if we determine that occurred.”

This fiasco will definitely leave a stain on Twitter’s reputation as a secure and reliable system social networking entity. And teach all of us a valuble lesson, the internet isn’t safe and that we must take proactive steps to protect our data from falling into the wrong hands.

Sources: Twitter Support, Engadget