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Summary
- Twitter is a powerful social media platform used by the common masses and elite alike.
- High profile accounts of the likes of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Kanye West, and others got hacked, and their accounts were tweeting out bitcoin scam.
- Twitter banned all these accounts temporarily.
- Initial investigation suggests that Twitter employees were targeted to get access to internal systems and tools.
The social media platform Twitter has verified accounts of prominent individuals and corporates from valorous fields such as politics, sports, movies, and technology world. It is a powerful platform for these people to connect with the masses. When any of the public figure tweets, there are millions of people who are going to see these tweets. Such tweets create headlines and get retweeted by other people multiple times.
Twitter is so influential that now it has become an integral part of government communications. It is easy to use, and short and powerful messages can be sent to a massive audience across the world.
High-profile blue-ticked accounts get hacked
The platform creates a lot of impact on people, and one can only imagine that if any of such high-profile account gets hacked, the hacker can use it to send wrong messages. It happened on 15 July, when several verified accounts of famous individuals like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Kanye West, and others were hacked, and all these accounts were tweeting out Bitcoin scam.
It all began when Tesla CEO Elon Musk's Twitter account was tweeting about bitcoin scam followed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates' account and many others.
Also read: Trump-Twitter Spat: Is this honking the Share Price of any stock
Twitter was quick to act, and it completely disabled several accounts from sending any new tweets. Later the ban from most of the accounts was lifted, and Twitter announced that most of these accounts should be able to tweet again.
Currently, it is not clear how far-reaching the hacking was, but it seems it affected the most prominent and influential profiles. It appears that the hackers have identified some major security loophole in Twitter's login or account recovery process or the third-party apps.
Twitter has said late on Wednesday that through an internal investigation, it has found that Twitter employees were targeted to gain access to internal systems and tools.
Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey also reacted to this massive hacking of high-profile accounts:
Hackers managed to swindle around $118,314.86 in a matter of a few hours before Twitter could bring them down. The Twitter stock was down on Thursday’s premarket but managed to pare the losses and closed marginally in the red.
The FBI is now investigating the matter and The US Senate Commerce Committee has demanded Twitter to give more details on this incident by 23 July 2020.
Such hacking is unprecedented and severe in nature as this time it was about bitcoin, but what if terrorists and other such dangerous groups start hacking the social media platform for creating chaos and destruction.
Recently social media giant Facebook was also under heat after the Company put out the final report of civil rights audit. The report uncovered a major hole in Facebook’s understanding and application of civil rights, criticizing the Company for tolerating misinformation, hate and harassment.
Read here: Condemned for Misinformation, Hate & Harassment, Facebook Says- “We Are Making Progress”
At one hand, when the pandemic is driving the world towards more significant technological innovations and online collaboration, the period is also witnessing a sharp rise in the cybercrimes. Digital dependency also increases the vulnerability towards cyberattacks.
