‘Embarrassed’ Twitter says last week’s hack targeted 130 accounts – MarketWatch

‘Embarrassed’ Twitter says last week’s hack targeted 130 accounts - MarketWatch thumbnail

Connected Press

Attack centered ‘OG’ accounts; hijackers reset 45 passwords, downloaded records from as many as 8 accounts

OAKLAND, Calif. — Twitter says the hack that compromised the accounts of a pair of of its most excessive-profile users centered 130 of us. The hackers were in a position to reset the passwords of 45 of these accounts.

The San Francisco-basically basically based firm said in a weblog put up Saturday that for up to eight of these accounts the attackers furthermore downloaded the account’s records thru the “Your Twitter Files” tool. None of the eight were verified accounts, Twitter said, including that it’s a ways contacting the homeowners of the affected accounts.

“We’re embarrassed, we’re disappointed, and extra than something else, we’re sorry. All of us know that we must work to catch your belief, and we can give a personal to all efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice,” Twitter
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said within the weblog put up.

The July 17 assault broke into the Twitter accounts of world leaders, celebrities and tech moguls in one of many most excessive-profile safety breaches in most recent years. The attackers sent out tweets from the accounts of the public figures, providing to send $2,000 for every $1,000 sent to an nameless bitcoin address.

It highlighted a most valuable flaw with the service tens of millions of of us believe scheme to depend on as an compulsory communications tool.

Allison Nixon, chief study officer at cybersecurity firm 221B said in an electronic mail Sunday that the of us within the assist of the assault appear to believe strategy from the “OG” crew, a crew attracted to fashioned, short Twitter handles a lot like @a, @b or @c, shall we embrace.

“Essentially basically based fully upon what we have got got viewed,the motivation for the most most recent Twitter assault is a a lot like old incidents we have got got seen within the OG crew — a aggregate of enterprise incentive, technical bragging rights, recount, and disruption,” Nixon wrote. “The OG crew is no longer identified to be tied to any nation voice. Rather they are a disorganized crime crew with a total skillset and are a loosely organized crew of serial fraudsters.”

Whereas this assault did no longer appear mosey further than the bitcoin
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ruse — a minimal of for now — it raises questions about Twitter’s ability to gain its service towards election interference and misinformation before the U.S. presidential election.

“Total markets and potentially elections could maybe well presumably even be manipulated or altered in this map,” Nixon said. “Victims of account takeovers customarily attain no longer know that the fraud has befell, and generally can not identify safety precautions to end it.”

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