It's so easy for a Twitter user to use a a later compromised 3rd party app, only having to press a button to authorize the entire oauth chain. Look at hosted packages or artifacts in dockerhub, GitHub, ruby, pypi, etc. Malicious things like this are everywhere, dormant on systems until the right group can leverage against end users. Imagine if tweekdeck was compromised.
Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack
601–610 of 1001 posts
Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack
#602Earlier 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.
Hang on... is it “stolen”? If you trick some people into giving their money to you, it’s unethical, but you didn’t force them to hand you their money against their will.
I would say “taken” is fair; but “stolen” isn’t exactly right.
Plus there is no way it will be that much.
Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack
#603Elon Musk as well. Tweets still up, saying "Feeling greatful, doubling all payments sent to my BTC address! You send $1,000, I send back $2,000! Only doing this for the next 30 minutes." As of now, 121 people have sent cash totally more than 2.5BTC. Edit: Just seen @BillGates compromised as well, same bitcoin account. Edit 2: Elon's tweet seems to be getting removed, and then reposted again shortly after. About $40k…
Joe Biden too. “He was ‘giving back to the community’” if you sent him money. They tailored the messages pretty well, I have to say. Bezos “was maxing out at 50MM”!!
It's a sidenote, but it's so strange that that would be pocket money for him; just like donating 10$ for us. Gives you a sense of scale.
Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack
#604Given 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.
Just imagine trading secrets to foreign actors, or selling misinformation. Can you even think of the covert operations that could have taken place to slowly poison streams of people in the twitter-sphere? This is a big yikes on a platform that "poses" as a platform of democracy and free speech.
Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack
#605Given 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.
>a demonstration to a big client Okay, this has me curious. Could someone describe the context/circumstance where you have a 'big client' to whom you illustrate capabilities by this kind of hack? This is a black market thing, right? I don't doubt it, I'm just curious what this market is, and what it means to be a 'big client' in it, etc.
I will bite. Without taking a political stance. Imagine you could show GRU that they can make Trump tweet "I just ordered a nuclear strike on..."
What value would you place on this?
The proof will go along with another method of hacking the account that is not disclosed.
Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack
#606Given 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.
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…
Question (I'm not an expert): can unconfirmed transactions be withdrawn? If so, what's the timeline?
Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack
#607Earlier 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.
I'm not saying that these are all from the hack, I'm saying that the activity on the Bitcoin blockchain has significantly spiked, and it looks like a very large number of transactions have yet to be confirmed. So any amount so far is just the beginning - more is sitting in the mempool ready to be confirmed.
Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack
#608Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stock plays would be much easier to detect and trace.
It's true, but maybe not impossible to pull off. The exploit could've been purchased by people deeply connected and organized. If you split your investment and divert it enough, it will be impossible to differentiate from all the other incoming sales tomorrow. There are so many smarter moves that probably could have been made though. The upside of this one is that we'll keep speculating for a good while (maybe foreve…
That sounds much more complicated and likely to involve too many players.
Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
What was done was a guaranteed method of getting the method/exploit fixed in record time. If the perpetrator wanted to demonstrate, they would have targeted someone inconsequential that would not have put the problem on twitters radar. They blew their whole wad, likely on purpose, and there is nothing else planned.
Yeah, the idea that this is an initial step in something bigger doesn't make sense. If they wanted to exfiltrate data, they already did that previously. They very loudly burned their access, this seems a lot more like someone trying to monetize their access quickly before their access token expires - squeezing out the last few drops before they can no longer get into the system.
Unless they already did their exfil.
Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack
#610Earlier quoted context omitted.
>a demonstration to a big client Okay, this has me curious. Could someone describe the context/circumstance where you have a 'big client' to whom you illustrate capabilities by this kind of hack? This is a black market thing, right? I don't doubt it, I'm just curious what this market is, and what it means to be a 'big client' in it, etc.
this is not a way for you to demonstrate what can be done to a big client. ignore OP.
Source?