Hackers attacked around 130 Twitter accounts in their unprecedented attack on some of the platform’s most visible users this week, the company revealed.
The attackers were only able to take over a “small subset” of the targeted accounts, including those of Apple, Uber, Kanye West and Elon Musk, which used to post fraudulent tweets, Twitter said in a statement Thursday night.
The San Francisco-based firm said it is “working with affected account owners” as it examines whether hackers compromised your private data.
“We have also been taking aggressive steps to secure our systems while our investigations are ongoing,” the company said.
The FBI and other law enforcement authorities are also investigating the attack, in which hackers infiltrated more than a dozen high-profile Twitter accounts to fuel a bitcoin scam. The affected accounts belonged to important business and political figures, such as Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett.
According to Elliptic, a cryptocurrency analytics firm, more than 400 payments worth $ 121,000 flowed into three bitcoin addresses mentioned in the fake tweets. Most of the money came from Asia-based exchanges, including a one-time payment worth $ 42,000, but about a quarter of the revenue probably came from American victims, Elliptic said.
The hackers reportedly paid a Twitter employee to help them carry out the attack. The company acknowledged that hackers attacked employees who had access to internal tools and systems.
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