Remember the Twitter accounts that got pwned, with a Bitcoin come-on?

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Nation-state, right? These superhackers took over the Twitter accounts of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Apple, Kanye West, Mike Bloomberg, Barack
[See the full post at: Remember the Twitter accounts that got pwned, with a Bitcoin come-on?]

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Elly

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This suspect seems to be different than who KrebsOnSecurity fingered on couple weeks ago. Maybe the Tampa teenager just purchased the accounts from the perp to scam for bitcoin?

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According to this article, three people have been arrested on suspicion of being responsible for the hacks:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jul/31/twitter-hack-arrests-florida-uk-teenagers

 

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“Imagine what could have been.”

These three young people will all be charged and tried and likely convicted of numerous felonies in the US. Two of them are from the US and one is from the UK. Their public records and reputations will forever contain the stain and disgrace of those felony convictions; and they will likely spend numerous years in prison. Their tech talents could have been put to good and productive use; and they could have had productive, successful and financially rewarding careers with all the material benefits that go along with legitimate success in life. But instead they chose to go over to the dark side. It’s a sad commentary on the influences in our society today that teenagers and young adults seem to find attractive and enticing.

 

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I think this proves that we need to focus just as much attention on the geeky high school or college kid as Russia, China, or some other outside threat. Twitter again proved how they lack good tools to stop this sort of threat. Glad that the mastermind a 17 year old from Florida will be prosecuted as a adult for this.

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rc primak

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Nah, I didn’t expect a nation state.  A nation state would do a lot more with this access than just some quick bitcoin. Or selling the hack to people who would use it to make quick bitcoin.

I expected those hackers mentioned on the Reply All podcast, who hack to get special names, and for them to be smart enough not to use it themselves, but to sell it. And to be too dumb to realize that Bitcoin isn’t untraceable, but exactly the opposite.

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rc primak

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[rc primak]

Still, one can’t help but wonder two things.

Is Twitter really that lax in their internal security, as to allow an insider hack to access high-profile accounts? (Reminds me of the iCloud hacks of a couple of years ago. Yahoo has also suffered insider hacks in the past.) Or, as I suspect, did these script kiddies get onto the Dark Web and purchased or rented a much more sophisticated kit, as so often happens?

If the latter, who was really responsible for developing a kit which can hack Twitter (and maybe Facebook)?

Moderator note: Edit, please relegate politics to the Rant Forum

-- rc primak

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by rc primak.

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No kit, just employee credentials obtained via phone calls:

https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1289000138300563457

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rc primak

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And very lax internal security.

cheers, Paul

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rc primak

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