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Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

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Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#851

Post by tbrock »

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 think you greatly overestimate the value of this. It’s a sham, everyone makes a few tweets, it’s on the news and it’s fixed and over tomorrow.

Very little damage done that isn’t obviously corrected/correctable short term. In other words, who cares?

I’d pay tree fiddy for this exploit. On the other hand, this person seems to be making BANK getting 13 BTC as of now.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#852

Post by dlgeek »

Solvitieg wrote: post #754
dmix wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice catch, this may be what it was. Edit: looks like an admin panel was the culprit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23853786

I don't understand this angle because typically admin panels only let you manage the account; deactivate, manage email address, etc. As shown in the screenshots. Tweeting on behalf of another user seems like an unnecessary feature to give admins.

Current consensus theory is attackers used the admin panel to change email address to an account they owned, then used that to trigger a password reset and gain control.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#853

Post by Aperocky »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #236

Your site is getting hacked, you don't know how the hackers are doing it, what do you do ops wise? Take the whole site down for a few hours? Because the entire platform is compromised, how do you handle that?

If you can't have a log trail that establish how someone tweeted something, might as well shut down then.

It should become very apparent how this is done through the correct levels of logging. Unless of course twitter backend firefighting team consists of hasty tooling that writes directly to production table with no oversight (which also sounds like a possibility)..

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#854

Post by m0zg »

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.

Apparently hackers have commented that they now have DMs of all the hacked blue checks. They referred to that as the "fun" part of this exercise.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#855

Post by praveen9920 »

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.

Or it could be attack on Twitter itself. Jack's policies are not loved by few folks in WH. Just speculating

OR

Twitter's stock was down by some major percentage because of this incident. It could be a way to earn bigger and "legal" money by having prior knowledge about this incident.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#856

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#857

Post by ChuckMcM »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #273
neurostimulant wrote: post #144

With so many accounts compromised, the hackers might actually have full access to Twitter's backend. The postmortem would be very interesting. I'll be looking forward to it. Imagine if the hackers timed the intrusion during github outage, and twitter's employees can't deploy a fix for the exploit fast enough because github was down!

It "feels" like an insider attack (simultaneous compromise of lots of high value accounts) but I agree, it will make for a fascinating post mortem if one is produced.

And now this : A Twitter insider was responsible for a wave of high profile account takeovers on Wednesday, according to leaked screenshots obtained by Motherboard and two sources who took over accounts.

From - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxd3d/twitter-insider-ac...

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#858

Post by jessriedel »

tbrock wrote: post #851
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 think you greatly overestimate the value of this. It’s a sham, everyone makes a few tweets, it’s on the news and it’s fixed and over tomorrow. Very little damage done that isn’t obviously corrected/correctable short term. In other words, who cares? I’d pay tree fiddy for this exploit. On the other hand, this person seems to be making BANK getting 13 BTC as of now.

You could move many, many millions of dollars on the stock market with these accounts. Would require more care and/or tricks to avoid being apprehended than a simple anonymous bitcoin scheme, but the pay off could have been at least a couple of orders of magnitude higher.

Re: Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

#859

Post by hadeson »

bb2018 wrote: post #840
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.

Occam's razor says this is almost certainly the case. It isn't like the hacker knew that it would generate such little bitcoin being sent their way until after it failed. Especially if the hacker is not from the US it seems much easier to do the bitcoin hack than try to contact a company thousands of miles away that you know one at.

Twitter investigation suggest that this is a coordinated social engineering attack [0]. The idea that the hackers are some non state actors and not from the US seem unlikely. [0] https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/128359184646423347...
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