FBI joins Twitter hacker hunt after prominent accounts hijacked
The FBI's San Francisco office said on Thursday it has
launched an investigation after hackers accessed Twitter's internal systems to
hijack accounts of high-profile people such as US presidential candidate Joe
Biden, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, former US President Barack Obama and
billionaire Elon Musk and used them to solicit digital currency.
"At this time, the accounts appear to have been compromised
in order to perpetuate cryptocurrency fraud," the FBI said in a statement.
"We advise the public not to fall victim to this scam by sending
cryptocurrency or money in relation to this incident. As this investigation is
ongoing, we will not be making further comment at this time."
Around 130 accounts were targeted, Twitter said in a
statement published on Friday, adding that "for a small subset" of
these profiles, the attackers were able to gain control and then send Tweets
from those accounts.
It added that it was continuing to assess whether the
attackers were able to access private data of the targeted accounts.
US legislators worried about future attacks.
"While this scheme appears financially
motivated...imagine if these bad actors had a different intent to use powerful
voices to spread disinformation to potentially interfere with our elections,
disrupt the stock market, or upset our international relations," US
Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Echoing a similar sentiment, Representative Jim Jordan, the
top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, asked what would happen if
Twitter allowed a similar incident to occur on November 2, a day before the US
presidential election.
Jordan said he remained locked out of his Twitter account as
of Thursday morning and said his confidence in how the company operates has
been deteriorating.
The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Republican
Roger Wicker, expressed similar concerns and asked Twitter Inc to brief
committee staff by next week.
In a letter to Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey
on Thursday, Wicker said it "cannot be overstated how troubling this
incident is, both in its effects and in the apparent failure of Twitter's
internal controls to prevent it". Wicker added it is "not difficult
to imagine future attacks being used to spread disinformation or otherwise sow
discord through high-profile accounts, particularly through those of world
leaders".
Twitter Inc said hackers had targeted employees with access
to its internal systems and "used this access to take control of many
highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf".
Other high-profile accounts that were hacked included rapper
Kanye West, Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, investor Warren Buffett,
Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates, and the corporate accounts for Uber
Technologies Inc and Apple Inc.
In an extraordinary step, it temporarily prevented many
verified accounts from publishing messages as it investigated the breach.
The hijacked accounts tweeted out messages telling users to
send bitcoin and their money would be doubled. Publicly available blockchain
records show that the apparent scammers received more than $100,000 worth of
cryptocurrency.
Twitter's shares fell a little more than 1 percent on
Thursday afternoon.
CEO Dorsey said in a tweet on Wednesday it was a "tough
day" for everyone at Twitter and pledged to share "everything we can
when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened".
Dorsey's assurances did not assuage Washington's concerns
about social media companies, whose policies have come under scrutiny by
critics on both the left and the right.
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