Cybersecurity experts said the breach that enabled hackers to access Twitter’s internal system, resulting in the hijacking of a number of high-profile accounts, was…
Cybersecurity experts said the breach that enabled hackers to access Twitter’s internal system, resulting in the hijacking of a number of high-profile accounts, was likely more than just the cryptocurrency fraud it appeared to be. It also opened up a barrage of concerns about Twitter’s own tools.
The massive breach, which allowed one or more intruders to post on behalf of some prominent Twitter users—only generated just over $117,000 in bounty as of July 16. The FBI is now currently leading an inquiry into the Twitter hacking, unnamed sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.
The attack began in the afternoon on July 15 when prominent cryptocurrency accounts posted similar messages calling on people to deposit bitcoin into an account with a promise that the senders would receive twice their money back. The breach then quickly expanded to major accounts in business and politics, including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and Kanye West.
“It was clearly to show their clientele what they could do,” Rob Behnke, CEO at Halborn, a cybersecurity firm working with emerging technologies, told The Epoch Times, referring to the hackers.
“Now this group will be able to charge a lot more money to their black market clientele since they’ll be able to claim credit for the attack,” he added. “Bitcoin is nothing compared to the amount of global press they got.”
Behnke, like other experts, said the breach exposed two of Twitter’s major vulnerabilities: humans and backdoors.
Usually sophisticated hackers have more defined objectives that they use for social media hacks such as large scale financial disruption, political activism, and state-sponsored threats or large-scale electronic disruption, according to Charity Wright, a cyber threat intelligence adviser at IntSights with 15 years of experience with the U.
