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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

#631

Post by reilly3000 »

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.

I think that's the case. No prominent Republicans were targeted. See: Watergate, Wikileaks DNC emails. Same shit.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#632

Post by dopamean »

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.

No. No one is saying that.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#633

Post by ithinkso »

dvt wrote: post #383
dawnerd wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

113k is a little reward?

This hack is (quite literally) worth billions of dollars. From market manipulation to geopolitical implications. So yes, 113k is peanuts.

No one has ever gone bankrupt by taking profit. State level actors/smoke screen/geopolitical implications all sounds great and are exciting but this might be a small group that just thought 'let's get what we can, easier to launder 100k that billions lol'

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#634

Post by blisseyGo »

Tweet from TwitterDev team yesterday:

https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1283068902331817990

> 2 days to go… #TwitterAPI

https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1283433096780677122

> Thank you to all of you who have engaged with us and shared your feedback. Your input has been vital, and we’re committed to continuing these conversations with you. There’s so much more we’re doing to build a better #TwitterAPI… and Early Access is coming tomorrow!

Were they supposed to launch some new API tomorrow which got hacked?

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#635

Post by truantbuick »

dvt wrote: post #383
dawnerd wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

113k is a little reward?

This hack is (quite literally) worth billions of dollars. From market manipulation to geopolitical implications. So yes, 113k is peanuts.

Billions? Ridiculous.

There's a lot of suggestions of what one might accomplish with this exploit, but I'm not sure they would be obviously more lucrative than this. Any time you use it, you're likely to lose it, so its value is pretty precarious. How much can you really accomplish in a few hours?

People get hacked so often on twitter that there's already substantial doubt ("did they get hacked?") whenever somebody tweets something odd, so I really doubt you could accomplish some diabolical geopolitical aim that some seem to expect.

And as if it's so straightforward to find a terrorist billionaire that's willing to pay top dollar to use it to start a war or something to that end.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#636

Post by shdc »

monokh wrote: post #496
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.

How about the possibility of a Bitcoin marketing campaign?

Hmm the thing is, associating it even more with "hack" and "scam" isn't really great marketing.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#638

Post by dopamean »

dvt wrote: post #383
dawnerd wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

113k is a little reward?

This hack is (quite literally) worth billions of dollars. From market manipulation to geopolitical implications. So yes, 113k is peanuts.

There's basically no way to earn any significant amount of money beyond what they've already done without getting caught. Certainly not a billion dollars.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#640

Post by shakezula »

jeffbee wrote: post #571
hharlequin wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite possibly this isn't a hack and someone got a Twitter admin's account, then got access to the admin panel and "all" accounts without having to hack much of anything.

If there is such a level of privilege in Twitter's stack, that says a great deal about their technology. Insiders must not be able to act as users except in prescribed ways requiring two-person control, logged and 100% audited. Glass-breaking privilege escalation should set off every pager in the company.

this assumes two things: that there is a security model that would prevent this attack that they should have implemented, and that alarms _weren't_ set off. Both of those are weak assumptions.
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