Discussion

• @jack @jack on x

  Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened. We're diagnosing and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened. 💙 to our teammates working hard to make this right.

• @twittersupport @twittersupport on x

  We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly.

• @twittersupport @twittersupport on x

  You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident.

• @tylerwinklevoss Tyler Winklevoss on x

  WARNING: @Gemini's twitter account, along with a number of other crypto twitter accounts, has been hacked. This has resulted in @Gemini, @Coinbase, @Binance, and @Coindesk, tweeting about a scam partnership with CryptoForHealth. DO NOT CLICK THE LINK! These tweets are SCAMS.

• @winklevoss Cameron Winklevoss on x

  ALL MAJOR CRYPTO TWITTER ACCOUNTS HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED. 2FA / strong password was used for @Gemini account. We are investigating and hope to have more information shortly. https://twitter.com/...

• @jack @jack on x

  bitcoin @BubbaWallace https://twitter.com/...

• @ydklijnsma Yonathan Klijnsma on x

  Leveraging @RiskIQ's datasets we have identified more infrastructure tied to the current cryptocurrency scammers impacting @elonmusk , @billgates, etc. This is research data, validate before taking action, it might identify new targets also. IOCs: https://pastebin.com/...

• @5blocks @5blocks on x

  Following yesterday's hack of prominent Twitter accounts, Google removed the search page feature showing individual Tweets for brands, presumably to avoid giving the hack exposure. Buckle up for short term fluctuations in search while Twitter restores order. attn: @rustybrick

• @bullyesq @bullyesq on x

  Jack can't get to the twitter hack until he finishes up his day at Square.

• @selectedwisdom Clint Watts on x

  I'm surprised Twitter has not been able to shut this off, which is pretty scary its still going. And I wonder now, how deep have hackers got in? Uh, what if this happened on election day, but strategically? What about private DM's, wonder if they are vulnerable?

• @jbarro Josh Barro on x

  I don't get why they don't shut down the site right now.

• @teddyschleifer Teddy Schleifer on x

  folks this is fucking extraordinary https://twitter.com/...

• @tomwarren Tom Warren on x

  Apple's official Twitter account is the latest to be hacked. Pretty clear this is a big Twitter breach, potentially involving admin access over accounts. https://twitter.com/...

• @kevinroose Kevin Roose on x

  If whoever apparently has read/write access to every verified Twitter account also has access to those accounts' DMs, this could make the Sony hack look tiny.

• @jason_koebler Jason Koebler on x

  Twitter just locked my account and made me delete a tweet about how this hack worked

• @oneunderscore__ Ben Collins on x

  Sorry I'm not over this, but I've seen nothing to suggest that these hackers were prevented from seeing pretty much any account's DMs. From what I can tell, they did a password reset, which would leave them with full access to hacked accounts. They were in Elon Musk's for hours.

• @techcrunch @techcrunch on x

  Several major Twitter accounts were hacked, including @bitcoin, @ripple, @elonmusk, and @billgates to spread the cryptocurrency scam. So far, the scammers have stolen over $50,000 from unsuspecting victims in just over an hour. More: https://techcrunch.com/... https://twitter.com…

• @strngwys Roberto Baldwin on x

  I'm assuming accounts like Trump's have additional security. Like you need super god access to get to them after that one employee deleted Trump's acct a few years ago.

• @thehackersnews @thehackersnews on x

  🔥 WATCH OUT 🔥 Many popular #cryptocurrency-related verified Twitter accounts got simultaneously compromised and tweeted an identical “Crypto For Health” #SCAM message. Hacked people and organizations include Gemini, #Binance, Binance's CEO, #Coinbase, CoinDesk, and KuCoin. https:…

• @mikaelthalen Mikael Thalen on x

  @oneunderscore__ Rumors suggesting a Twitter employee with access to the user management panel was targeted. That would explain why none of the tweets appear to be coming from a 3rd party app and even affected accounts with 2FA.

• @swiftonsecurity @swiftonsecurity on x

  Note the email addresses change. Twitter has no reason to give employees native access to impersonate users. Accounts are being stolen, auth token generated, and tweeted from. Note how legitimate users still have tokens to delete tweets. Not a clean hit. https://twitter.com/...

• @rjcc Richard Lawler on x

  Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Cash App, Ripple all hacked....what is going on with Twitter's security and how long? This isn't some text message workaround either, they pinned the scam message to Elon's page. https://www.engadget.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @arrington Michael Arrington on x

  This is a bad look for bitcoin and crypto, but it's a much worse look for Twitter. https://twitter.com/...

• @duncan Duncan Davidson on x

  🔒 If you leverage Twitter as an identity provider to log into other services, I think right now is a good time to re-evaluate that decision.

• @kaplanezra Ezra Kaplan on x

  Senator Hawley just sent a letter to @jack about the Twitter hack: “I am concerned that this event may represent not merely a coordinated set of separate hacking incidents but rather a successful attack on the security of Twitter itself.” https://twitter.com/...

• @felixsalmon Felix Salmon on x

  It is WAY too early to draw this conclusion. I feel like this is just the series pilot. https://twitter.com/...

• @jsnell Jason Snell on x

  Wait, what if bitcoin was Twitter's long game https://twitter.com/...

• @kimdotcom Kim Dotcom on x

  No more government backdoors @Jack. Be the first to come clean and don't be afraid to tell the truth. https://twitter.com/...

• @sarahfrier Sarah Frier on x

  The biggest risk is that this Twitter hack wasn't about a bitcoin scam at all, but about something we haven't seen yet that could be much worse. Hard to know everything the hackers did with their access but hope Twitter is able to find out definitively.

• @alexstamos Alex Stamos on x

  If we want our consumer-facing services to be more secure, we are going to have to accept more friction in our interactions with our important providers and not crush CSRs under metrics that only measure speed and customer satisfaction.

• @pinboard @pinboard on x

  Twitter should think about getting a full-time CEO

• @twittersupport @twittersupport on x

  We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.

• @twittersupport @twittersupport on x

  We know they used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf. We're looking into what other malicious activity they may have conducted or information they may have accessed and will share more here as we have it.

• @twittersupport @twittersupport on x

  Once we became aware of the incident, we immediately locked down the affected accounts and removed Tweets posted by the attackers.

• @twittersupport @twittersupport on x

  We have locked accounts that were compromised and will restore access to the original account owner only when we are certain we can do so securely.

• @twittersupport @twittersupport on x

  We also limited functionality for a much larger group of accounts, like all verified accounts (even those with no evidence of being compromised), while we continue to fully investigate this.

• @twittersupport @twittersupport on x

  Internally, we've taken significant steps to limit access to internal systems and tools while our investigation is ongoing. More updates to come as our investigation continues.

• @susanthesquark Susan Fowler on x

  It's completely terrifying that, from the sound of these tweets, employees can use internal systems and tools to access and control the accounts of some of the highest profile, most powerful people in the world. https://twitter.com/...

• @twittersupport @twittersupport on x

  This was disruptive, but it was an important step to reduce risk. Most functionality has been restored but we may take further actions and will update you if we do.

• @vitalikbuterin Vitalik.Eth on x

  “Centralized backdoors are awesome and help keep society safe” https://twitter.com/...

• @cyantist Cyan on x

  What if this is a coordinated effort of some sort to either a) move some money b) discredit Twitter c) create a claim in which you can then argue that powerful people should not be on Twitter?

• @fraying @fraying on x

  Translated: a hacker tricked a Twitter employee. This is the service the President depends on to communicate, the service that can ruin people's lives, and their security is this bad. Is there anything Twitter can't fuck up? https://twitter.com/...

• @ericajoy Erica Joy on x

  friends, user impersonation tooling is not uncommon. it's often how support agents at tech companies troubleshoot accounts. https://twitter.com/...

• @bborrman Brandon on x

  Important updates on what happened. 👇 Investigation is ongoing but we will continue to provide info as we have it. https://twitter.com/...

• @elisacardnell Elisa Cardnell on x

  May I recommend the Information Assurance training the Navy did every.single.year? I mean, we all had the scenarios memorized after the 3rd time it was the same training, but the ridiculousness was memorable enough to be effective. https://twitter.com/...

• @jason_koebler Jason Koebler on x

  we spoke to two hackers and we were able to independently verify they were in control of hijacked accounts today. One of them said they paid the Twitter employee to help them take over accounts; not sure on the specifics here at the moment

• @josephfcox Joseph Cox on x

  New: multiple sources in or around the criminal world provided screenshots of an internal Twitter panel they say is linked to the account takeovers. Twitter is now removing images of the panel from the social network https://www.vice.com/...

• @swiftonsecurity @swiftonsecurity on x

  Terminology clarification: The accounts are not being individually hacked as traditionally reported. The Twitter authorization system is being hacked or employee access abused for Account Takeover. You could argue this is semantics, but at least to me there is a difference.

• @nash076 @nash076 on x

  This headline strains the definition of “hacker.” Is it hacking to pay an employee for access to a secure system? They didn't actually break any computer security. They used money. It's super effective. https://twitter.com/...

• @karissabe Karissa Bell on x

  A rogue employee would explain why this affected such a large number of accounts over an extended period (and possibly why Twitter seemed to struggle to shut this down). https://twitter.com/...

• @alexsalvinews Alex Salvi on x

  The panel is an example of the issue of insider data access at tech companies. Whereas in other cases hackers have bribed workers to leverage tools over individual users, in this case the access has led to takeovers of some of the biggest accounts on the social media platform.

• @imranzomg Imran Khan on x

  No amount of information security will ever prevent people from being the biggest vulnerability. https://twitter.com/...

• @brentsimmons Brent Simmons on x

  Reminder: it's a zillion times easier to hack Twitter and take over accounts of Apple, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden, and others than it would be to hack their separate websites. Distributed systems are safer.

• @brandonbutch Brandon Butch on x

  Today marked the biggest Bitcoin scam I've ever seen, thanks to Twitter's employee panel allegedly being breached. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Apple & dozens of other high profile accounts got hacked. The hackers posted the same BTC address on all accounts and made ~$60k today 🤦‍♂️ ht…

• @reckless Nilay Patel on x

  I am routinely jealous of @motherboard's security reporting and this is why https://twitter.com/...

• @kremlintrolls KT Counter Intelligence on x

  “Twitter has been deleting screenshots of the panel and has suspended users who have tweeted the screenshots, claiming that the tweets violate its rules.” https://twitter.com/...

• @kimcrayton1 @kimcrayton1 on x

  Tech is NOT neutral nor is it apolitical I hope they received enough to get them through that jail time...although if it's a mediocre, white dude, he'll have a book deal, speaking engagements, and a consulting business very soon https://twitter.com/...

• @markdice Mark Dice on x

  Excuse me, but what's up with that screenshot showing you have a “Search Blacklist” and “Trends Blacklist” button for Admins? And why is Twitter censoring anyone who tweets the screenshot? https://twitter.com/...

• @cwarzel Charlie Warzel on x

  a pretty sobering thing to read given that we've collectively outsourced our public square to private companies built for viral advertising where security and privacy are imperfect and constantly under attack https://twitter.com/...

• @eastdakota Matthew Prince on x

  Guess there's going to continue to be a market for cybersecurity. 🤷🏻‍♂ ️ https://twitter.com/...

• @wongmjane Jane Manchun Wong on x

  *implying the world leader wouldn't start the nuclear war themselves* https://twitter.com/...

• @reckless Nilay Patel on x

  Wild times when ⁦@CaseyNewton⁩ and ⁦@HawleyMO⁩ are in agreement on Twitter's issues https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @derekmross Derek Ross on x

  Yeah, probably not a good thing to use Twitter the way our President uses Twitter. You know, rage Tweeting. https://twitter.com/...

• @ritajking Rita J. King on x

  Let's all agree maybe we take a deep breath before acting on the impulse to trigger Armageddon based on a tweet https://twitter.com/...

• @nickbona Nick Bonatsakis on x

  Twitter is pretty much public communications infrastructure now. It's time to regulate it, or better yet, replace it with something distributed and widely redundant. There's far too much at stake to let one single US company be responsible. https://twitter.com/...

• @dabeard David Beard on x

  There was merriment from the Great Twitter Hack, but also darker implications: The National Weather Service in Lincoln, IL, for example, had just tweeted a tornado warning before suddenly going dark. https://www.theverge.com/...

• @brianfagioli Brian Fagioli on x

  @Techmeme @CaseyNewton I mean. The same could be said about hacking *anything* a world leader uses. Like an email account. Not unique to Twitter.

• @derrick_snyder Derrick Snyder on x

  Again...NWS Lincoln, IL can't tweet right now because of the Twitter lock of verified accounts. What a mess. There is a tornado warning in effect. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @tempnbcnews @tempnbcnews on x

  It appears Twitter has halted tweeting from verified accounts as they deal with the July 15th verified account compromise event. We will temporarily tweet significant updates here, and retweet them to our verified accounts, as a service.

• @kayvz Kayvon Beykpour on x

  Our investigation into the security incident is still ongoing but we'll be posting updates from @TwitterSupport with more detail soon. In the meantime I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry for the disruption and frustration this incident has caused our customers. https://twi…

• @comfortablysmug Comfortably Smug on x

  To all the bluechecks watching in silent horror as we take back what is ours: You should move to a small town, somewhere the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here. You are not a wolf, and this is a land of wolves now

• @kremlintrolls KT Counter Intelligence on x

  One of the screenshots is a Twitter user posting images of the panel themselves. It's in the article. If we tweet it, Twitter is likely to suspend our account https://www.vice.com/...