Unsplash/Yucel Moran
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News broke on Wednesday that some major Twitter profiles were hacked, including the likes of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. So how did the trolls capitalize on the opportunity? By promoting a cryptocurrency scam, of course. Jokes on you hackers, we all know cryptocurrency IS the scam.
Still, Twitter was forced to blackout its verified users while it investigated the breach. News of Twitter getting its Equifax on sunk shares 4% in pre-market trading yesterday, costing it $1.3B in market share.
It was able to claw its way back throughout the day, only finishing down 1% as the hack isn’t expected to affect ad revenue… in the short term, at least.
@jack, PI
What country do you think was behind the breach, and why Russia?
Twitter is determined to get to the bottom of this hack and has made some details of the investigation public. Turns out, this may have been an inside job. Allegedly, the hacker paid a Twitter employee to gain access to an internal tool that controls verified accounts. That would explain why this was labeled as a “social engineering” hack meaning that none of the users’ credentials were compromised.
And this isn’t the first time employees have gone rogue. Just last year the Department of Justice charged two of Jack’s finest with committing the tech equivalent of a McDonald’s employee giving away the recipe to the special sauce. The two former employees gave private information from Twitter to a group of Saudi Arabian nationals.
That’s whack, @jack
This is not a good look for Twitter and the platform is lucky it was only a bitcoin scam. Still, the breach highlights the social media company’s vulnerabilities. Then again, who is ever prepared to get Judas’d by one of its top security engineers (allegedly!).
Plus with the Presidential election heating upTwitter will be an important source of information for the election. @jack better play some lockdown defense.
The bottom line…
While the mastermind behind the Jack attack was likely a butthurt employee seeking retribution for the social media company removing Code Red from the vending machine, something more nefarious was brewing across the pond. The UK has accused Russian hackers of stealing coronavirus vaccine data. Have they tried just asking?.
Of course, the Kremlin denied any involvement in “borrowing” the pharmaceutical research… but we’ll just have to see how coronavirus cases look in a few weeks in the Motherland.
Water Cooler Talking Point(s)
💧 “I’m just waiting for Elon to go Liam Neeson on whoever f*cked with his Twitter handle.” – (Ian, The Water Coolest HQ)
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