Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is now under heavy fire following a high profile system hack yesterday. Some of the victimized include former President Barack Obama and his ex-running mate Democratic presidential front runner Joe Biden.
Site support stated early in the evening: “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. You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident.”
As The Washington Post reported: “While it was unclear how the attacks originated or why they kept going, some cyber security experts speculated that someone may have gained access to internal Twitter controls that allowed them to take over accounts and post on their behalf. Some of the people who were hacked specified they had turned on two-factor authentication and were using strong passwords, which typically makes any account more difficult to break into.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) sent a letter addressing the situation to Dorsey immediately. He announced:
“As I write, Twitter seems to be experiencing a large-scale cyberattack, as illustrated by a number of posts inviting users to transfer Bitcoin under fraudulent pretenses. The accounts targeted include those for Apple, Uber, Jeff Bezos, former President Barack Obama, and even the Democratic nominee for President.”
Then claimed, “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. As you know, millions of your users rely on your service not just to tweet publicly but also to communicate privately through your direct message service. A successful attack on your system’s servers represents a threat to all of your users’ privacy and data security.”
And expressed, “Please reach out immediately to the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and take any necessary measures to secure the site before this breach expands. Once you have attended to immediate concerns, please respond to following questions:
“Did this event represent a breach of users’ own account security or of Twitter’s systems? Were accounts protected by two-factor authentication successfully targeted in this breach? If so, how was this possible? Did this breach compromise the account security of users whose accounts were not used to share fraudulent posts? If so, how many accounts were affected? Were all accounts’ security compromised by this breach? How many users may have faced data theft as a consequence of this breach? What measures does Twitter undertake to prevent system-level hacks from breaching the security of its entire userbase? Did the attack threaten the security of the president’s own Twitter account?” he finished. All eyes are on Dorsey.
