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Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

krebsonsecurity.com

131–140 of 536 posts

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#131

Why would the hackers gain this level of access, and do something that nets them so little money(relative to the amount they could have gained), when they can't even spend without having law enforcement outside their door?

Summer break in school.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#132

I don’t really think he should be naming who his unnamed sources “think” is behind an attack on this scale, especially with full name, city of origin, Instagram, suggested current location, age, etc. It feels a very, very small step away from doxxing to me. Added to which he has somebody in the comments essentially calling for the death penalty over this. If he has this personal information and evidence, pass it to t…

It's doxxing. My question is why is that a bad thing in this case?

Zero tolerance policies don't make any sense to me.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#133

I think people are still severely under-estimating how dangerous this was. Back in 2013 when The Associated Press was hacked with a tweet of "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured" and erased $136 billion in equity market value: Archive: http://archive.is/8lCMV https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/23... This twitter hack could have literally destroyed economies,…

It's almost as if web services that let people post whatever they want at any time, vulnerable to whatever security flaws may be present, shouldn't be used as a reliable source for up-to-the-minute information about literally anything important at all.

The same could be said for radio, whether Orson Wells "Alien Invasion" broadcast or the multitude of April 1st jokes that got out of hand.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. We've entered a world where the lowest common denominator of information is being used as primary source for current events. That's asinine.

But is that really new? Other than scale and reach (quantitative difference), how is that any different qualitatively from the old grapevine/gossip network? "My dad's co-worker's, girlfriend's uncle works at ... and said..."

the scale and reach

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. We've entered a world where the lowest common denominator of information is being used as primary source for current events. That's asinine.

But is that really new? Other than scale and reach (quantitative difference), how is that any different qualitatively from the old grapevine/gossip network? "My dad's co-worker's, girlfriend's uncle works at ... and said..."

“My dad's co-worker's, girlfriend's uncle works at ... and said...” doesn’t reach the whole world instantaneously

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider this: i'd argue that the fundamental feature of twitter isn't tweets. It is the underlying certainty that the tweeted content belongs to the person with the blue checkmark. My friends in social media positions heard about the twitter hack from me, not the other way around. Given how this info disseminated, combined with the breaking of twitters fundamental feature, i'm surprised more people didn't fall for t…

makes me wonder why they did the scam in the afternoon PST when everyone is at work. why not wait until midnight. bitcoin is as popular overseas as in america.

Perhaps they weren't willing to risk losing their window of opportunity.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#137
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy the stock market argument. People open short positions worth more than $100K every day, especially against companies like Tesla. There would be nothing suspicious about a few such trades. But really, my point is that pulling off a sophisticated exploit involving major celebrities, politicians and CEOs, social engineering/bribery, internal access at a top company etc. doesn't really seem worth the risk if…

> People open short positions worth more than $100K every day Yes, but you'd need to open one worth $1m to make $100k on a 10% move. $1m is still not "much" in the grand scheme of things, but it's still significant.

Not with put options, no. You can make 1000% return on these, especially when you control the exact moment the tweets will be published.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#138

Why would the hackers gain this level of access, and do something that nets them so little money(relative to the amount they could have gained), when they can't even spend without having law enforcement outside their door?

1. For the lulz 2. For a disgruntled twitter admin who thinks they won't get caught 100k is a good haul. If you steal 1MM dollars and you have a 80k/year job you're in trouble. 100k in btc cashed out over a year or two - less of a problem. 3. I can't think of how you could make more, at least not without putting yourself at huge risk. 4. Maybe these tweets were just to serve as proof you did something else we don't know about yet, and you are getting paid for that. 5. Maybe you are a Russian operative, and your job wasn't to make money, but to try and find dirt in the DMs of Trump's political opponents.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#139

This is the most important point: > Also, it seems clear that this Twitter hack could have let the attackers view the direct messages of anyone on Twitter, information that is difficult to put a price on but which nevertheless would be of great interest to a variety of parties, from nation states to corporate spies and blackmailers. My understanding is the hackers used the admin panel to change the email addresses of…

The wonder what they saw on the dms

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#140

I don’t really think he should be naming who his unnamed sources “think” is behind an attack on this scale, especially with full name, city of origin, Instagram, suggested current location, age, etc. It feels a very, very small step away from doxxing to me. Added to which he has somebody in the comments essentially calling for the death penalty over this. If he has this personal information and evidence, pass it to t…

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