Was the Twitter hack an inside job?
Twitter’s best and brightest are easily bought.
You might have heard that yesterday afternoon a Twitter hack that affected countless users – including Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Elon Musk — sent the social media giant in full-on panic mode.
The Twitter hack had these prominent accounts directing followers to send money to a Bitcoin account with the promise that it would be doubled and returned.
The Bitcoin account raked in the dough from dimwitted idiots who follow Joe Biden and Barack Obama – among others. According to the New York Post, the Bitcoin account in question now holds over $110,000.
Not since the Nigerian email scam have so many morons fallen for such a transparently obvious con.
I find that telling, don’t you?
I mean, come on! This tweet from Biden was coherent. That should’ve been a dead giveaway.
Plus, when has Joe ever given back to the community? Unless you are related to Joe, you get zero return from the guy.
Silver lining? For several hours while the folks at Twitter scrambled to correct the problem, the insufferable blue checkmark “journalists” were silenced. Those of us unverified users enjoyed some peace and quiet for a change.
I had the mental image of Brian Stelter curled up in the corner impotently clicking the send tweet button while weeping into his plate of donuts.
Well, last night, Vice reported that this Twitter hack is looking like an inside job:
“We used a rep that literally done all the work for us,” one of the sources told Motherboard. The second source added they paid the Twitter insider. Motherboard granted the sources anonymity to speak candidly about a security incident. A Twitter spokesperson told Motherboard that the company is still investigating whether the employee hijacked the accounts themselves or gave hackers access to the tool.
The accounts were taken over using an internal tool at Twitter, according to the sources, as well as screenshots of the tool obtained by Motherboard. One of the screenshots shows the panel and the account of Binance; Binance is one of the accounts that hackers took over today. According to screenshots seen by Motherboard, at least some of the accounts appear to have been compromised by changing the email address associated with them using the tool.
In all, four sources close to or inside the underground hacking community provided Motherboard with screenshots of the user tool. Two sources said the Twitter panel was also used to change ownership of some so-called OG accounts—accounts that have a handle consisting of only one or two characters—as well as facilitating the tweeting of the cryptocurrency scams from the high profile accounts.
Great work, Team Twitter!
Maybe you guys should spend less time policing President Trump’s tweets and more time on internal security. Just a thought.
As a result of this hack, Twitter’s stock took a hit. That doesn’t surprise me in the least. Clearly this worldwide platform is built on very shaky ground.
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