Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Thursday noted the hacking of high-profile accounts, including former US President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
“Tough day for us on Twitter. We all find it terrible. “We can make a diagnosis and when we do we will share a complete understanding of what we do,” Dorsey said in a tweet.
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.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 15, 2020
The accounts of several tech billionaires such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk were also compromised in an apparent bitcoin scandal.
Fake tweets from the hacked handle offered to double the money of anyone sending money via bitcoin within 30 minutes. Uber and the Apple Twitter handle also posted similar tweets with the scandal.
You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 15, 2020
So far, the bitcoin address tweeted by hackers has been sent to 11 bitcoins, costing more than $ 100,000.
Twitter had previously made a statement stating that it was aware of a “security incident affecting accounts on Twitter”. The company said it is investigating and working to fix it.
Some of the hacked Twitter accounts said they used two-factor authentication and strong passwords, but the tweets indicated that they were posted using Twitter’s web app.
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.
— jack (@jack) July 16, 2020
NEW — statement from a spokesperson for Bill Gates.
“We can confirm that this tweet was not sent by Bill Gates. This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing. Twitter is aware and working to restore the account.” pic.twitter.com/v37Jvs76Jl
— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) July 15, 2020
