On the intervening night of 15th and 16th July, Twitter accounts of high profile celebrities like U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, former U.S. President Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk were hacked. The Twitter accounts appeared to have fallen prey to bitcoin related scam.
https://twitter.com/NorbertElekes/status/1283533579620950016?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwWhile such online frauds are quite common, what is worrying is that the hackers gained access to multiple high profile Twitter accounts. In a statement issued by Twitter, it has claimed that the microblogging site believes it was a coordinated social engineering attack by people who managed to gain access to employees who had access to internal systems and tools. Social engineering is manipulating individuals using deceptive means into divulging confidential or personal information which may be used for fraudulent purposes.
https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283591848729219073?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwThis further raises question on how the hackers knew which employees had access to the internal systems or whether it means that the employees were compromised themselves. This also raises questions on Twitter’s cyber security.