Twitter says hackers “manipulated” some of its employees to access accounts in a high-profile attack on the social media company, including those of Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.
“We know that they accessed tools that are only available to our internal support teams to target 130 Twitter accounts,” said a statement released Saturday on the company’s blog.
For 45 of those accounts, hackers were able to reset passwords, log in and send tweets, he added, while downloading the personal data of up to eight unverified users.
Official posts from Apple, Uber, Kanye West, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and many others tweeted that attempted to trick people into sending Bitcoin hackers.
More than $ 100,000 of the virtual currency was sent to the email addresses mentioned in the tweets, according to Blockchain.com, which monitors crypto transactions.
Twitter blocked affected accounts and removed fraudulent tweets. It also blocked accounts unaffected by the hack as a precaution.
The New York Times reported Friday that the attack was carried out by a group of young friends with no ties to a foreign state or organized crime.
However, the hack has raised questions about Twitter’s security, as it serves as a megaphone for politicians ahead of the November election.
Twitter said it is limiting information it makes public about the attack while taking “remediation steps” to secure the site.
[AFP]
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