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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

#691

Post by mdoms »

css wrote: post #661
blisseyGo wrote: post #634

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 Ea…

Or someone making one last use of an exploit on the old API, since ostensibly there is a day to go before the new API is released on the public net.

I don't think they were planning to immediately deprecate and remove the old API. Is there any reason to believe this is the case?

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#693

Post by andy_ppp »

rudolph9 wrote: post #669

I was thinking the other day about a digital signature for limited character tweets. Provided I’m not a cryptography expert and you should explore my ideas with caution, why not even just sign every tweet with an ed25519 signature? It’s on 64 bytes tacked onto the message and easy to verify...

Or put the tweets onto a blockchain...

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#694

Post by Nextgrid »

benlumen wrote: post #615
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.

Data theft like that is normally silently dumped after the breach occurs and anyone knows what happened. This looks more like data injection somewhere. Perhaps an old API exploit. You used to be able to send an SMS to tweet, for example.

Kill 2 birds with one stone? Once you stole the data why not double-dip and make extra money by pulling a scam?

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#695

Post by jsnider3 »

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.

Frankly, I expect the real prize to be the DMs used by the blue checks. Biden and Barack's DMs are worth much more than 100 grand.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#697

Post by melq »

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.

How did you determine it to be literally worth billions of dollars? I don't understand how sending some faked tweets could have much in the way of geopolitical implications.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#698

Post by caretak3r »

People who don't want scrutiny from their old tweets want an easy way to delete/wipe their tweets. There are a load of software out there that claim to do this. They all relatively take over the oAuth chain, and do the needful. But one of them does it as if you were in your browser. As to not give away information about the user's phone/type/version.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#699

Post by panopticon »

binwiederhier wrote: post #642
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.

Doesn't even look like Twitter has acknowledged the attack yet. The status page [1] shows all green. [1] https://api.twitterstat.us/

Twitter acknowledged the incident over two hours ago: https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/128351803844522393...

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#700

Post by benlumen »

Bluecobra wrote: post #517
DevX101 wrote: post #316

Twitter should suspend the entire platform until they can credibly fix this and prevent it in the future. An attacker could drop AMZN stock by 10% in minutes with just the wrong tweet from Bezos.

Yep, something like that already happened when the AP’s Twitter account was hacked back in 2013. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor...

Wow, I remember that. Amazing. Think how many more people would see that sort of tweet today.
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