“We believe that for up to 36 of the 130 targeted accounts, the attackers accessed the DM inbox, including 1 elected official in the Netherlands,” Twitter said in a tweet. “To date, we have no indication that any other former or current elected official had their DMs accessed.”
The attack last week — which promoted a Bitcoin scam — affected numerous verified accounts including that of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian West and many others.
Twitter said the attackers compromised the accounts by targeting Twitter employees and gaining access to an internal administrative tool.
Twitter says some accounts had personal data stolen in massive hack.
Cyber security experts and policymakers opine that the bitcoin scam may mask a much more troubling data breach involving the personal communications of the world’s most powerful people.
Hack
The hackers targeted workers who had administrative privileges.
Once a number of them had been compromised, the hackers used their access to internal controls to send out tweets promoting a Bitcoin scam under accounts owned by Bill Gates, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, Warren Buffett, and others.
