The social networking site "Twitter" confirmed today, Saturday, that the hackers who carried out a large-scale attack on the accounts of celebrities and political figures "successfully manipulated a small number of employees" in the company, offering his apology and asserting that he understands the impact of what happened on the users' trust.
The social platform stated that the electronic hackers targeted 130 accounts and succeeded in penetrating 45 of them as a result of "using tools available only to the company's internal support teams."
The number of targeted targets is small compared to the site's total users (about 166 million daily), but pirated accounts include figures such as the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, former US President Barack Obama, and officials of major companies such as Tesla's director Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Twitter acknowledged the damage the attack had caused to his reputation.
"We are embarrassed, frustrated and especially sorry. We know that we have to work to regain your confidence, and we will support all efforts to hold perpetrators accountable," Twitter said in an article on his blog.
The pirates' goal seems to make easy money, as they posted posts on targeted accounts urging followers to send Bitcoins, a cryptocurrency, in exchange for twice the amount.
According to specialized sites that record Bitcoins exchanges, without revealing their recipients, he has sent about $ 100,000. "Twitter" indicated that the hackers were able to download data from eight pirated accounts, a feature that is only available to the account owner. But the eight accounts were not documented, meaning that they do not carry the blue sign next to the account name, which gives its owner privileges.
The site explained that thanks to the tools that were used, the hackers managed to bypass the dual firewall that enhances the security of accounts.
The widespread attack that the FBI opened an investigation into, a discussion about securing social platforms a few months before the US presidential election in November, and about the possible repercussions of hacking into the account of Donald Trump, who uses Twitter intensively and followed by 83.5 million people. . Trump was not among those targeted on Wednesday.
Twitter has yet to provide any details of the employees involved in piracy, nor about the identity of the pirates.
The hackers were able to obtain personal information for account holders, including email addresses and phone numbers.
As for the accounts that were hacked, the pirates reached "other information", according to the website, which indicated that its investigation teams are still working on identifying them.
And it all started with a pirate that works under the name "Kirk" and has access within the company, according to the New York Times. The information gathered by the newspaper led to the exclusion of the assumption that a known state or group of pirates stood behind the attack.
The newspaper said the hack was carried out by a "youth group", one of whom said he was still living with his mother, and they met because of their obsession with hard-to-get usernames.
The pirates whom the New York Times spoke to confirmed that they participated in hacking into the accounts of people who are not top celebrities, but some people sought to obtain the names of their users, and they were seeking to sell those names in exchange for Bitcoins.
Usernames, for example, consist of a single letter or number, which constitutes an indication that its owner is one of the first users of the site.