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Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

coindesk.com

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Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#581

Post by [deleted] »

longtom wrote: post #555
bouncycastle wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. They're actually getting away with quite a big loot! The number of unconfirmed transactions has catapulted from ~9k to about ~50k right now, which means there's large amount of activity. It will take a while for the dust to settle. You can watch them here https://www.blockchain.com/btc/unconfirmed-transactions chart https://www.blockchain.com/charts/mempool-count A better graph of the current transactions sitti…

So we're likely talking some 50-100 million of dollars being stolen? Insane.

[deleted]

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#582

Post by quickthrower2 »

DevX101 wrote: post #388
baxtr wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse? How about POTUS declares war on China thru twitter? OMG, I just realized how dumb that would have been to say back in 2016. But these days?

This hack could absolutely get people killed. There are several tweets I can think of from POTUS that would begin immediate military mobilization from an unfriendly country.

The POTUS should not communicate via social media IMO. But now he has set up the expectation that what we tweets relates to what he will do.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#583

Post by Nextgrid »

londons_explore wrote: post #558

Notable that Trump is not impacted. If you had backdoor access to any Twitter account, why on earth wouldn't you tweet as Trump?

I have heard that Trump's account has extra protections around it that presumably prevent even staff from accessing it, in which case if this was a staff account compromise it would make sense that they can't touch Trump's account.

Another possibility is that they are indeed just after the money and compromising Trump's account would prompt a faster response from Twitter (possibly taking down the entire account or platform) and reduce the effectiveness of the scam.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#584

Post by [deleted] »

CleanCoder wrote: post #259
kerng wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a front end/OAuth issue - those are not uncommon either. Will be interesting to learn more. Also begs the question, who is liable in such cases....

Liable for the account being compromised? Twitter. Liable for people sending money? People sending money.

[deleted]

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#585

Post by fouc »

one2know wrote: post #277
granzymes wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter almost certainly self-hosts GitHub, no?

Don't know, but current corporate dogma is to not host anything, including using third party auth provider which is like giving away their customer list.

Many larger corporations have strict rules on keeping things like their source code in-house, so that means no external services for code reviews or CI, etc.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#586

Post by xvector »

jgbond wrote: post #541
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #260

Given how huge this hack is, and how little the BTC reward is going to be, I'm tempting to think this is either: - a test of a new hacking system - a demonstration to a big client - a first shot to threat some entity - a diversion while they get the real loot And that the BTC messages are just a way to justify it so it looks like a simple scam. Such a hack is worth way, WAY more than the few BTC it could bring.

I’m guessing DMs were the real loot. The public display with the BTC diversion validates any DMs that were stolen. Otherwise blackmail targets could deny them.

These are publicly managed Twitter accounts, they probably don't have any DMs of substance.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#587

Post by [deleted] »

cj wrote: post #569
jgbond wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m guessing DMs were the real loot. The public display with the BTC diversion validates any DMs that were stolen. Otherwise blackmail targets could deny them.

If DMs were the real loot, they wouldn’t have exposed the hack by tweeting on the account.

[deleted]

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#588

Post by [deleted] »

Sebb767 wrote: post #499
fishtoaster wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could just be a relatively unsophisticated actor who stumbled upon a serious vulnerability and didn't know enough to market it to, eg, a state actor or whatever.

But then why set up a rather simply scam instead of getting the bug bounty from twitter? That wallet is currently sitting at about 150k USD and these are rather hard to pay out. Why not just go for 100k USD bug bounty, completely legal and with fame?

[deleted]

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#589

Post by Mountain_Skies »

cj wrote: post #569
jgbond wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m guessing DMs were the real loot. The public display with the BTC diversion validates any DMs that were stolen. Otherwise blackmail targets could deny them.

If DMs were the real loot, they wouldn’t have exposed the hack by tweeting on the account.

Perhaps it is a form of proof that they actually have access to the accounts and thus the DMs. Just posting claimed DMs that can be deleted and denied has a lower probability of being believed.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#590

Post by ilikecode »

ehsankia wrote: post #497
fishtoaster wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could just be a relatively unsophisticated actor who stumbled upon a serious vulnerability and didn't know enough to market it to, eg, a state actor or whatever.

mafia boy 2.0

Hah I knew that guy before he did it too. He was just a loser kiddie.

I literally just signed up to reply to this.

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