Twitter did not identify the politician, but reports indicate he was the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party Geert Wilders. The company did not address what other accounts your inboxes may have accessed. The hack caught several high-profile users, including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Kanye West. The update suggests that messages from Barack Obama and Joe Biden were not caught in the attack, a scenario that has led to much speculation about how much worse the attack could have been.
We believe that up to 36 of the 130 specific accounts, the attackers accessed the DM inbox, including 1 elected official in the Netherlands. To date, we have no indication that any other past or current elected official has been accessed from your other DMs.
– Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 22, 2020
Still, the fact that hackers were able to access the accounts of a former president and current presidential candidate has caused great concern among lawmakers, who have demanded investigations into the company and how the attacks were carried out. The FBI also confirmed that it is conducting an investigation.
Twitter previously blamed the hack for a “social engineering attack,” but has not directly commented on speculation that one or more of its employees may have been complicit in the hack. The company also revealed that hackers were able to export extensive account data for eight users, but said none of them was verified.
