TOPLINE
The FBI is conducting an investigation into Wednesday’s Twitter hack after a Bitcoin rip-off appeared on high-profile accounts like Joe Biden, Elon Musk and Kim Kardashian that led the social media website to take the unprecedented step of shutting down the tweeting talents of each verified account Wednesday afternoon.
POLAND – 2020/07/15: On this photograph illustration a Twitter emblem is seen displayed on a smartphone. … [+]
KEY FACTS
The FBI mentioned in an announcement Thursday that it’s “investigating the incident involving several Twitter accounts belonging to high profile individuals” that “appear to have been compromised in order to perpetuate cryptocurrency fraud.”
Twitter customers may have collectively misplaced at the least $120,000 in Wednesday’s rip-off.
The rip-off concerned the high-profile customers asking followers to shortly ship $1,000 in Bitcoin to a supplied tackle, promising in lots of instances $2,000 in return as a manner of “giving back to my community due to Covid-19.”
Twitter mentioned programs had been hacked after some staff had been efficiently focused as a part of “a coordinated social engineering assault.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has additionally requested his state’s Division of Monetary Providers to conduct a full investigation, saying in an announcement that cybersecurity is “critical as we approach the upcoming presidential election.”
CRITICAL QUOTE
KEY BACKGROUND
Wednesday’s Twitter hack may have been the most important assault the platform has ever had. Together with people, accounts like these for Uber and CashApp had been additionally compromised. However this isn’t Twitter’s first go-round on the subject of getting hacked. In 2019, CEO Jack Dorsey’s account tweeted out the N-word and recommended a bomb was planted at Twitter headquarters. One other notable incident occurred in 2017, when an worker shut down President Donald Trump’s account for 11 minutes.
FURTHER READING
The hackers who took over the Twitter accounts of Joe Biden and Elon Musk may have made off with as a lot as $120,000 worth of bitcoin — however we may by no means know for certain (Enterprise Insider)
Biden, billionaires and company accounts focused in Twitter hack (The Washington Submit)
