Massive Account Takeover @Twitter

What Happened?

Hackers targeted Twitter to compromise some of the country’s most prominent figures including former Vice President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama and Bill Gates. Cyber security expert Matt Barnett explains what happened on NBC10 news.

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Almost a month later...

Twitter has confirmed details that this hack was orchestrated by a group of relatively young fraudsters (17-22). At least one of the suspects has a history of conducting small scale scams on platforms like Minecraft. It turns out the suspected ringleader is a 17-year-old minor* from Florida.

The minor was able to gain access to these high-profile accounts in what has become all too cliché these days—social engineering. By using LinkedIn to research Twitter employees, the minor contacted targets by posing as a coworker, from the IT department. After convincing users to provide their credentials, the suspect accessed an internal Twitter customer service tool and used it to take over approximately 130 prominent accounts and tweet out their Bitcoin Scam.

The moral of the story? Stay vigilant, conduct frequent social engineering tests, and implement regular security awareness training for your organization to avoid becoming a statistic.

*As a matter of prudence and protection for minors, SEVN-X is not publishing the primary suspect's name, though it has been released by various media outlets.