Twitter has admitted in a recent post that of the 130 Twitter accounts targeted in a recent hack, at least 36 accounts had their private messages accessed by hackers, including the account of an elected official in the Netherlands.
Breitbart News recently reported that the social media platform Twitter says it is “embarrassed” by a recent hack that saw 130 accounts affected and multiple high-profile accounts used to promote a Bitcoin scam. Hackers were reportedly able to reset the passwords of 45 of the hacked accounts.
The company said that it would be reaching out to the affected accounts, some of which include Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden, Former President Barack Obama, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and the official accounts of ridesharing service Uber and tech giant Apple.
It has been estimated that the hackers managed to generate around $100,000 from the Bitcoin scams which encouraged the followers of high-profile accounts to send Bitcoin to a particular address in order to receive double the amount of Bitcoin they sent back. Of course, no Bitcoin was ever sent back to those that sent coins to the hackers’ wallets.
Now, Twitter has revealed that up to 36 of the 130 targeted accounts had their private messages, known as Direct Messages or DMs on the platform, accessed by hackers, including the account of one elected official in the Netherlands.
We believe that for up to 36 of the 130 targeted accounts, the attackers accessed the DM inbox, including 1 elected official in the Netherlands. To date, we have no indication that any other former or current elected official had their DMs accessed.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 22, 2020
The company clarified that 8 accounts had their private data downloaded by hackers using the “Your Twitter Data” tool, but 36 is the number of accounts that were accessed and had their DM’s read by hackers.
8 is the number of accounts where an archive of "Your Twitter Data" was downloaded. This includes all of *your* account activity including DMs. None of the YTD downloads impacted Verified accounts. https://t.co/CchxHDTX2z
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 23, 2020
Twitter stated in a blog post that the company was “embarrassed,” writing:
We’re acutely aware of our responsibilities to the people who use our service and to society more generally. We’re embarrassed, we’re disappointed, and more than anything, we’re sorry. We know that we must work to regain your trust, and we will support all efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice. We hope that our openness and transparency throughout this process, and the steps and work we will take to safeguard against other attacks in the future, will be the start of making this right.
Breitbart News will continue to update readers on further developments in the story.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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