{"id":11273,"date":"2020-07-16T18:05:37","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T18:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/kenya\/?p=11273"},"modified":"2020-07-16T18:05:37","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T18:05:37","slug":"twitters-response-to-hacking-spree-of-high-profile-accounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/economy\/twitters-response-to-hacking-spree-of-high-profile-accounts","title":{"rendered":"Twitter\u2019s response to hacking spree of high-profile accounts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>AfricaPress-Kenya:<\/strong> Several high-profile Twitter accounts were hacked on Wednesday by attackers in a security breach. The hijacks took control of public figures and major corporations accounts, using them to spread a cryptocurrency scam.<\/p>\n<p>Twitter responded to the attacks saying it was \u201ca coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know they used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf. We\u2019re 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,\u201d said Twitter.Twitter briefly suspended some account actions, including preventing verified users from tweeting, in bid to gain control of the platform and stop the hijacks.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Once we became aware of the incident, we immediately locked down the affected accounts and removed Tweets posted by the attackers.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TwitterSupport\/status\/1283591849681342469?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 16, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident. \u2026 We\u2019re continuing to limit the ability to Tweet, reset your password, and some other account functionalities while we look into this. Thanks for your patience,\u201d read a tweet from the Twitter Support account.<\/p>\n<p>The firm further locked accounts that were compromised and said they would restore access to the original account owner only when they were certain they could do so securely.\u201cInternally, we\u2019ve taken significant steps to limit access to internal systems and tools while our investigation is ongoing. More updates to come as our investigation continues,\u201d said Twitter.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We\u2019re continuing to limit the ability to Tweet, reset your password, and some other account functionalities while we look into this. Thanks for your patience.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TwitterSupport\/status\/1283541557656731648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 15, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened,&#8221; Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey tweeted.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re diagnosing and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened. <\/p>\n<p>? to our teammates working hard to make this right.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; jack (@jack) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jack\/status\/1283571658339397632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 16, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>Hacked accounts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Some of the accounts targeted include those of billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill gates and Warren Buffett.The official accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg, Kim Kardashian West, Wiz Khalifa, YouTuber MrBeast, Floyd Mayweather, and Kanye West were also affected.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.standardmedia.co.ke\/images\/thursday\/gzwzuwpsrsvmv5l5f10117749f6a.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Other compromised accounts include, Apple, Wendy\u2019s, Uber, Hard Drive Magazine, and CashApp.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.standardmedia.co.ke\/images\/thursday\/nkhkbq8kzenupof5f10121291ba5.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The hackers posted a cryptocurrency scam promoting the address of a bitcoin wallet with the claim that the amount of any payments made to the address would be doubled and sent back.&#8221;Everyone is asking me to give back. You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000,\u201d read a tweet from Bill Gates\u2019 Twitter account.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.standardmedia.co.ke\/images\/thursday\/zanalir1hi6otg6uxyp5f1012451a96e.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>All the compromised tweets have since been deleted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AfricaPress-Kenya: Several high-profile Twitter accounts were hacked on Wednesday by attackers in a security breach. The hijacks took control of public figures and major corporations accounts, using them to spread a cryptocurrency scam. Twitter responded to the attacks saying it was \u201ca coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":11268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,7,8],"tags":[4679,4678,4677,4680,4681],"class_list":["post-11273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","tag-cryptocurrency-scam","tag-cyberattack","tag-hacking","tag-twitter","tag-twitter-hacked"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Twitter\u2019s response to hacking spree of high-profile accounts - kenya<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Several high-profile Twitter accounts were hacked on Wednesday by attackers in a security breach. 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