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posted by chromas on Thursday July 16 2020, @12:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the TANSTAAFL dept.

Musk, Obama, Biden, Bezos, Gates—bitcoin scam hits Twitter in coordinated blitz:

Twitter accounts of the rich and famous—including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Joe Biden—were simultaneously hijacked on Wednesday and used to push cryptocurrency scams.

As of 3:58 PM California time, the wallet address used to receive victim’s digital coin had received more than $118,000, though it wasn't clear all of it came from people who fell for the scam. It The bitcoin came from 356 transactions all occurred over about a four-hour span on Tuesday. The wallet address appeared in tweets from at least 15 accounts—some with tens of millions of followers—that promoted fraudulent incentives to transfer money.

“I’m giving back to all my followers,” one now-deleted tweet from Musk’s account said. “I am doubling all payments sent to the Bitcoin address below. You send 0.1 BTC, I send 0.2 BTC back!” A tweet from the Bezos account said the same thing. “Everyone is asking me to give back, and now is the time,” a Gates tweet said. “I am doubling all payments sent to my BTC address for the next 30 minutes. You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.

Other hijacked accounts belonged to Barack Obama, Apple, Kanye West, and a raft of cryptocurrency entrepreneurs.

[...] That so many social media accounts were taken over in such a short time and remained hijacked for so long is extraordinary if not unprecedented.

[...] As the hijackings continued, Twitter said that while it investigated, it was suspending the ability of many but not all Twitter users to tweet or respond to tweets. Accounts belonging to verified users were unable to use the platform except to send direct messages. Instead they got a message that said: "This request looks like it might be automated. To protect our users from spam and other malicious activity, we can’t complete this action right now. Please try again later." Unverified accounts worked normally.

If it looks too good to be true...

Also at: AlJazeera, BBCTech, CNET, MITTech, SecurityWeek, and Threatpost.


Original Submission

Related Stories

After Breach, Twitter Hires a New Cybersecurity Chief 18 comments

After breach, Twitter hires a new cybersecurity chief – TechCrunch:

Following a high-profile breach in July, Twitter has hired Rinki Sethi as its new chief information security officer.

Sethi most recently served as chief information security officer at cloud data management company Rubrik, and previously worked in cybersecurity roles at IBM, Palo Alto Networks and Intuit.

In the new role at Twitter overseeing the company’s information security practices and policies, Sethi will report to platform lead Nick Tornow, according to her tweet announcing the job move.

[...] Twitter had left the role of chief information security officer vacant since the departure of its previous security chief, Mike Convertino, who left in December to join cyber resilience firm Arceo.

Previously:
Hackers Tell the Story of the Twitter Attack
Twitter Revamping Its API for 3rd-Party Apps
Musk, Obama, Biden, Bezos, Gates-Bitcoin Scam Hits Twitter in Coordinated Blitz


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @12:46AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @12:46AM (#1022177)

    Hello my fellow Soylentils, AC here and I've decided Marx was right and it's time to redistribute some wealth.

    I am doubling all payments sent to my BTC address for the next 30 minutes. You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.

    BTC Address - bc1qxy2kgdygjrsqtzq2n0yrf2493p83kkfjhx0wlhx

    Only going on for 30 minutes!

    #FreeAristarchus

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @12:50AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @12:50AM (#1022181)

      Karl or Groucho?

      • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @02:32AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @02:32AM (#1022220)

        One was a prolific comedian, beloved the world over and the other never wrote a book that killed 100 million. Aside from minor details like that, does the difference matter?

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:20AM (1 child)

        by Thexalon (636) on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:20AM (#1022240)

        Neither - Harpo is way smarter than either of them, always knowing exactly the right thing to say.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:30AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:30AM (#1022252)

          Harpo was a honkie.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:10AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:10AM (#1022192)

      Dear friends do not fall for this scam. We can only forgive our brothers and sisters preying on the innocent.

      Namaste,
      apk

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by stretch611 on Thursday July 16 2020, @12:54AM (4 children)

    by stretch611 (6199) on Thursday July 16 2020, @12:54AM (#1022183)

    Accounts belonging to verified users were unable to use the platform except to send direct messages.

    Does this include the TWIT-in-chief Trump?

    I've long wished for this day when he can't post.

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:01AM

      by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:01AM (#1022186) Journal

      They probably enabled super-authentication for him after that Twitter employee managed to delete his account for a few minutes.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:19AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:19AM (#1022198)

      Noticed that all compromised accounts were those of democrats/leftists ?

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:38AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:38AM (#1022205)

        Perhaps the scammers knew Republicans wouldn't be so credulous to spend time on Internet FunBux.

      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 16 2020, @07:07PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday July 16 2020, @07:07PM (#1022521) Journal

        Yes, they appear to have also stolen the MAGA Bomber's mailing list.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @12:56AM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @12:56AM (#1022185)

    Oops... I meant the whitelist password.
    Shit... I meant the non-secular/SJW whatever the fuck you want to call it password.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:01AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:01AM (#1022187)

      I've been triggered by your flagrant disregard for the seriousness of systemic racism, systemic sexism and systemic genderism. #BLM #WLM #LBTGQ2SLM

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:09AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:09AM (#1022191)

        OMGWTFBBQ

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:30AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:30AM (#1022253)

        The new gun laws are in force. Please present your license and training certificate for that trigger.

        Failure to do so will result in you being tossed into prison where you will suddenly realize that slavery is very much still legal and still in practice. Enjoy your new opportunity for free job training. Bed and breakfast included.

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:14AM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:14AM (#1022195)

      Sensitive winter decorations upset over the choices of others? Noooo say it ain't soooooo.

      The irony is quite amusing, you mock people who want equality, justice, and respect for all then turn around and flip your shit about The Linux Foundation changing some technical terminology. Super secure bastions of independence =O.O=

      • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:47AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:47AM (#1022206)

        No. I think it's funny as hell that SJW are brainfucking people into seeing racism where it never was.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:36PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:36PM (#1022389)

          I will say I always find it ironic when people write about how terms like "blacklist" denigrate black people.

          I'm just like, why are you against blacklist, but not denigrate?

          Personally, I don't care about "denylists," the terms don't mean much to me other than what they mean, and I can figure out/teach what a denylist is more intuitively than a blacklist anyway. I can understand that people, especially people referred to as black, don't like "black" connoting evil, wrong, or bad, so overall, I'm fine with the changes.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @04:40PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @04:40PM (#1022465)

            Yeah, so society is brought down to their dumb level. "Blacklist" has shit all to do with black people. The idiotic ones that want to whine shouldn't get to force everyone to use newspeak. This is about Thought Control pushed by the Bolshevik Jews, and their useful idiots, who are trying to destroy the White Race so they can fulfill their global Jewish supremacy goals.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:53AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:53AM (#1022209)

        When you say "equality", "justice", and "respect" while meaning precisely the opposite, the words themselves become tainted with your lie. Case in point, "democrat" became a derogatory label in Russia due to this kind of abuse. Keep striving for the same achievement in other parts of the world, it is within your team's grasp.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @02:52AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @02:52AM (#1022229)

          We're better than this. Aren't we?

          I'd hope so [ycombinator.com].

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @02:44AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @02:44AM (#1022224)

        Nothing wrong with the word "blacklist" is there? [zerohedge.com]

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:05AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:05AM (#1022189)

    Once the Alzheimers sets in, you don't just forget your password, you forget what a password is.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:12AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:12AM (#1022193)

      Nonsense. He can't forget a password like "cornpop2".

      • (Score: 4, Touché) by Thexalon on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:22AM

        by Thexalon (636) on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:22AM (#1022245)

        No, see when you type "cornpop2", it shows to us as stars like "********".

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:22AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:22AM (#1022201)

    From TFS:

    As of 3:58 PM California time, the wallet address [blockchain.com] used to receive victim’s digital coin had received more than $118,000, though it wasn't clear all of it came from people who fell for the scam.

    I was going to say something pithy and amusing, but the more I think about it, it's not funny. Just sad.

    • (Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:51AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:51AM (#1022208)

      Nah, Musk honored the contributions because he couldn't remember if he tweeted that or not. It's funny because bidens campaign fund gained $118,000 at the same time.

  • (Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:24AM (5 children)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Thursday July 16 2020, @01:24AM (#1022203)

    Even when the scam's backstory is highly unlikely - you know, like Nigerian princes contacting you to give you their fortune, or megarich people who go out of their way to avoid paying taxes giving money away to random strangers on Twitter...

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday July 16 2020, @02:49AM (3 children)

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday July 16 2020, @02:49AM (#1022226)

      That is untrue.

      Bill Gates is definitely sending me a free copy of Windows NT4 on CD. It'll arrive any day now.

      • (Score: 1) by petecox on Thursday July 16 2020, @04:09AM (2 children)

        by petecox (3228) on Thursday July 16 2020, @04:09AM (#1022269)

        Shuttleworth did send me Warty Warthog CDs back in the days of dialup.

        • (Score: 4, Funny) by DECbot on Thursday July 16 2020, @05:55PM

          by DECbot (832) on Thursday July 16 2020, @05:55PM (#1022498) Journal

          That Linux thing is a scam. Large corporations will leverage your free software to build empires on the internet and you the developer will never get paid for your time. It'll never catch on. It's best if you stick to quality, proprietary OSes that will stick around for the long haul, like HP-UX, Windows NT4, or OS/2 Warp.

          --
          cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
        • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday July 16 2020, @09:00PM

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday July 16 2020, @09:00PM (#1022572)

          I actually received a free set of Encyclopedia Britannia CDs in the early 2000s (I think).

          It wasn't that great though, because everytime you clicked on an article it prompted you to change discs. I did install the whole lot one time, but it pretty much filled my hard drive if I remember rightly.

          Then Wikipedia came along.

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday July 16 2020, @07:53AM

      by Bot (3902) on Thursday July 16 2020, @07:53AM (#1022328) Journal

      for the longtime exposed to windows software a nigerian prince is more credible than gates wanting you to have his money

      --
      Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 1) by oumuamua on Thursday July 16 2020, @02:51AM

    by oumuamua (8401) on Thursday July 16 2020, @02:51AM (#1022228)

    https://youtu.be/5mZ0_jor2_k?t=60 [youtu.be]
    While the everyone else is like the driver at 1:30

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:21AM (23 children)

    According to Twitter Support [twitter.com]:

    We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.

    It seems odd that after gaining access to the twitter accounts of some of the richest and most well known people, the miscreants chose to perpetrate an unoriginal scam [bitcoin.com] rather than selling access to such accounts to the highest bidder.

    There's lots of questions, but few answers at this point.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:34AM (21 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:34AM (#1022255)

      The instant an ad went up twitter would have been notified, recommended everyone change their passwords, and investigated the potential security breach. That would have ruined the sale.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Thursday July 16 2020, @04:41AM (20 children)

        The instant an ad went up twitter would have been notified, recommended everyone change their passwords, and investigated the potential security breach. That would have ruined the sale.

        Exactly. This exploit (and a big one it was) is now burned. And for what? Chump change into some bitcoin wallet which is about to be under a microscope for quite some time?

        Something about this doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

        It may well be that whoever is responsible was just too unimaginative to think of using a breach like that for anything other than a dated scam.

        Then again, it could be that the breach was used for some other useful purpose, and the amateurish scam was just a diversion.

        Or it could be a completely different scenario.

        Like I said, this thing raises many questions.

        Hopefully we'll get some answers. Or maybe even some better questions!

        --
        No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @06:37AM (19 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @06:37AM (#1022317)

          It wasn't an exploit, it was social engineering. And it looks like *shocker* Twitter doesn't exactly have the best and brightest working for them so this is not going to be the end of this. You can't patch stupid.

          Beyond this, you're giving *way* more weight to the relevance of Twitter than there is to it. And this is probably due to the media. Twitter doesn't get people elected or any of that nonsense. Look at the aggregate of media on Trump, as the obvious example, and 99% of it was *extremely* negative. He didn't win in spite of the media propaganda, he won because of it. It all turned a geriatric and somewhat awkward TV guy with bad hair into some outsider edgelord speaking truth to power.

          Twitter is basically a zoo where half-wit monkeys throw shit at each other and measure their dick size in followers. Nothing, even that said by extremely high visibility accounts, has any real impact. I think the only people that would want to buy access to the accounts would do so just to troll, and they're not gonna pay $100k for that. In terms of overall valuation, this was probably - by a wide margin - one of, if not the single most, valuable ways to monetize this.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @06:58AM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @06:58AM (#1022319)

            Nothing, even that said by extremely high visibility accounts, has any real impact.

            I think the nattering on Twatter led politicians in many nations to move to a lockdown of the healthy, rather than go with saner policy that in some cases was already prepared. Even though most normal people wouldn't make life decisions based on what someone on Twatter said, the politician class is all on board out of perceived necessity.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @07:29AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @07:29AM (#1022325)

              Yeah, the politicians made their decisions based on twitter feeds :|

            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @09:02AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @09:02AM (#1022336)

              Ah but now you're getting into much more fundamental issues of democracy.

              If we had an open and inclusive democracy from the earliest days of our nations, we wouldn't have electricity today. Sound absurd? Think about how absurd electricity sounds. Let's put up, at immense cost, hundreds of thousands of giant wooden poles all around the country. And in between these poles let's string up extremely high power lines that will kill anything, human or animal, that touches one of those wires and anything else. And we know on occasion the poles will give way and the wires all also fall. And when this happens we know they will potentially cause fires, local damage, and even kill people - especially young people who might be more inclined to play around them. Won't anybody think of the children!? And we do this for what? At the time the main purpose of electricity was lighting. You're going to destroy the country and cause countless deaths, including of the children, so the rich won't have to have their servants light their oil lamps at night? How cruel can you be!?

              Modern democracies, particularly ours, have trended towards trying to create safety bubbles. Not because it's a good idea for society, but because it's a good idea for reelection. Imagine a politician takes a position, any position, which can be *perceived* as less safe than another position. Now come election time his opponent can frame the incumbent as being reckless or even actively hating the group(s) affected by taking the *perceived* less safe position. I say *perceived* because that's all that matters. It doesn't even matter if the actual decision is indeed more safe. For instance with these lockdowns we've seen dramatically increasing rates of deaths of despair due to suicide / drug overdose / etc. How does the total affect on deaths compare and contrast against a cautious reopening? Doesn't matter - because that's hard and complex and so doesn't really work in a democracy. And of course, what if you don't take safety as a key metric? For instance, thousands of kids have been killed and injured on playgrounds. So shouldn't we ban playgrounds? Obviously not. They're an important part of recreation, growth, and development for kids. Yet indeed a number of districts have indeed already started restricting playground equipment such as swings.

              I'm increasingly suspecting that the ancient Greeks were right. For those who may not know, Greek philosophy leaves us little more than brutal criticism of democracy, their own invention and the resultant collapse of their society alongside countless abhorrent decisions including the 'murder by vote' of Socrates himself, still considered one of the greatest minds of all time. But I think one of the most telling things about the problems of democracy is that that Ancient Greeks write of the consequences of democracy from thousands of years ago, as if they were living today. Here [wikipedia.org] is a section of criticisms from one pamphlet of the times:

                - Democratic rule acts in the benefit of smaller self-interested factions, rather than the entire polis.
                - Collectivizing political responsibility lends itself to both dishonest practices and scapegoating individuals when measures become unpopular.
                - By being inclusive, opponents to the system become naturally included within the democratic framework, meaning democracy itself will generate few opponents, despite its flaws.
                - A democratic Athens with an imperial policy will spread the desire for democracy outside of the polis.
                - The democratic government depends on the control of resources, which requires military power and material exploitation.
                - The values of freedom of equality include non-citizens more than it should.
                - By blurring the distinction between the natural and political world, democracy leads the powerful to act immorally and outside their own best interest.

              These are critiques that could have just as well been written by somebody experiencing the pangs of democracy today.

          • (Score: 5, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Thursday July 16 2020, @07:32AM (15 children)

            As usual, you completely miss the point.

            Twitter *was* exploited. That it was social engineering (a process issue) rather than a software flaw doesn't change that.

            Whether it's fake tweets, stolen Direct Messages (DMs) or something else, there could have been (or may still be) significant damage to some people -- potentially not even the ones whose accounts sent the scam tweets. We don't know.

            What's more, if you're slick enough to gain the access the miscreants did, it makes little sense to make an amateurish bitcoin scam your coup de grace.

            Twitter's process failed, and they should be roundly criticized for it.

            This bitcoin scam may just be a cover, especially since it was focused on the famous with millions of followers -- which means millions of people received said scam tweets, for some *other* nefarious purpose.

            If these folks had the keys to the kingdom, so-to-speak, they could also have targeted other, less prominent accounts which were the actual focus of the breach.

            Or maybe not. But as I said, it raises a bunch of questions.

            Personally, I never use twitter. I think it's mostly a waste.

            But I also don't let my *feelings* about the platform cloud my thinking. Twitter has 221 million users. How many of those folks are of interest to state security services, intelligence agencies, extremist groups and all manner of other bad actors?

            --
            No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
            • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @09:24AM (14 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @09:24AM (#1022342)

              You still haven't raised a single question as you've yet to even imagine anything worth even remotely close to $100k. I mean think about what you're saying. Posting some fake tweets and looking at DMs? Again outside of LoLs there's just no value there whatsoever. Look at the DNC leaks to see what politicians send in private email, which people are going to treat as infinitely more secure than Twitter. And there was absolutely nothing in there for anybody remotely informed on political affairs. And for those who are uninformed it didn't matter because they remain uninformed mostly voluntarily.

              • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday July 16 2020, @10:09AM (13 children)

                What's more, if you're slick enough to gain the access the miscreants did, it makes little sense to make an amateurish bitcoin scam your coup de grace.

                Twitter's process failed, and they should be roundly criticized for it.

                This bitcoin scam may just be a cover, especially since it was focused on the famous with millions of followers -- which means millions of people received said scam tweets, for some *other* nefarious purpose.

                If these folks had the keys to the kingdom, so-to-speak, they could also have targeted other, less prominent accounts which were the actual focus of the breach.

                Or maybe not. But as I said, it raises a bunch of questions.

                Personally, I never use twitter. I think it's mostly a waste.

                But I also don't let my *feelings* about the platform cloud my thinking. Twitter has 221 million users. How many of those folks are of interest to state security services, intelligence agencies, extremist groups and all manner of other bad actors?

                --
                No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:23PM (11 children)

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:23PM (#1022433) Journal
                  Tragedy of the commons. It depends how many people have the keys to the kingdom. If it's just you, then you can milk it for a long time. If it's you, 100k of your hacker buddies, and every competent crook on the planet. Well, get what you can while you can.
                  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday July 16 2020, @06:48PM (9 children)

                    If it's you, 100k of your hacker buddies, and every competent crook on the planet.

                    What gave you the idea that this was the case?

                    My understanding was that it was a targeted attack via social engineering, not some zero day exploit or known vulnerability. Not sure how 100k people get in on that action.

                    Please do elucidate.

                    --
                    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
                    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 16 2020, @11:24PM (8 children)

                      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 16 2020, @11:24PM (#1022633) Journal

                      My understanding was that it was a targeted attack via social engineering

                      Sounds like a lot of people can do that.

                      • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday July 16 2020, @11:47PM (7 children)

                        You implied that 100k people *did so*. Is that your contention?

                        I mean, 30 or 40 thousand attempts wouldn't tip anyone off that something was up. But 100,000? No way.

                        Please.

                        --
                        No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
                        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 17 2020, @12:08AM (6 children)

                          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 17 2020, @12:08AM (#1022658) Journal

                          I mean, 30 or 40 thousand attempts wouldn't tip anyone off that something was up.

                          Hence, the mention of the Tragedy of the Commons. Here's food, but it's not going to be there long once that massive number of people figure it out.

                          • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday July 17 2020, @12:37AM (5 children)

                            Hence, the mention of the Tragedy of the Commons. Here's food, but it's not going to be there long once that massive number of people figure it out.

                            You're talking out of your ass.

                            I assume it's from ignorance *this time*.

                            The hack was not a flaw or vulnerability in software or hardware. The miscreants contacted Twitter employees directly and tricked (or paid) them into giving up their credentials. That's what's called "social engineering."

                            Now, imagine that you're sitting there working and 100,000 people call you and attempt to get you to give up your credentials. After how many calls will you recognize that there's something fishy going on? Hopefully on the first call, but that didn't happen here.

                            How about two? Or five? I'd say that unless you're actually unconscious, you'd have to conclude that something odd was going one pretty quickly.

                            So, no. 100,000 people did not all execute this intrusion. It was one person/group that managed to sweet-talk their way into access to the internal management tools/systems.

                            I'm not sure where you got this 100,000 crackers with "access" to the intrusion, but it's not even a wild approximation of reality.

                            --
                            No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
                            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 17 2020, @01:09AM (4 children)

                              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 17 2020, @01:09AM (#1022681) Journal

                              The hack was not a flaw or vulnerability in software or hardware. The miscreants contacted Twitter employees directly and tricked (or paid) them into giving up their credentials. That's what's called "social engineering."

                              Now, imagine that you're sitting there working and 100,000 people call you and attempt to get you to give up your credentials. After how many calls will you recognize that there's something fishy going on? Hopefully on the first call, but that didn't happen here.

                              Exactly. There's a lot of people skilled in social engineering. There isn't a lot of people skilled in finding flaws and vulnerabilities in software or hardware. That social engineering exploit had a short shelf life.

                              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2020, @01:16AM (3 children)

                                by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2020, @01:16AM (#1022683)

                                Exactly. There's a lot of people skilled in social engineering. There isn't a lot of people skilled in finding flaws and vulnerabilities in software or hardware. That social engineering exploit had a short shelf life.

                                And that's why you claim that 100,000 *different* people/groups each, individually, performed this *specific* intrusion *yesterday*?

                                You're a genius! I'll be sure to look you up whenever I have any InfoSec questions.

                                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 17 2020, @01:32AM (2 children)

                                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 17 2020, @01:32AM (#1022690) Journal

                                  And that's why you claim that 100,000 *different* people/groups each, individually, performed this *specific* intrusion *yesterday*?

                                  Sounds like someone needs to read some posts!

                                  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday July 17 2020, @01:47AM (1 child)

                                    And that's why you claim that 100,000 *different* people/groups each, individually, performed this *specific* intrusion *yesterday*?

                                    Sounds like someone needs to read some posts!

                                    I did. Which is why I responded at all to *your* statement [soylentnews.org]:

                                    If it's you, 100k of your hacker buddies, and every competent crook on the planet.

                                    Which was what I initially responded to. And I *specifically* asked you about it in every. single. reply.
                                    I had to keep asking as you didn't answer the question.

                                    Or are you claiming that your SN account was hacked and someone else posted that?

                                    --
                                    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
                                    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 17 2020, @04:20AM

                                      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 17 2020, @04:20AM (#1022751) Journal
                                      Ok, what I did say and did mean to say was that there were hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of people with the skills to socially engineer their way into Facebook. So when someone first figures a way in via social engineering, they'll know that they're only the vanguard. Others can do what they did. It makes for a lot less incentive to preserve the exploit.
                  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday July 16 2020, @07:29PM

                    Here's an interesting take on the breach. [fortenf.org] It posits that maybe the bitcoin scam was all they could figure out to do in the short time (how long before someone notices they can't access their twitter account any more) they had to effect some results.

                    Which does makes sense. It also implies that the miscreants were not well organized and this wasn't a focused hack on Twitter. If that's the case and they just got lucky, that could mean that it was all just what it seems.

                    I'd be really interested to know what "social engineering" was done to get to one of the folks with access to the internal management tools/systems.

                    It seems unlikely that this was just luck, finding one or more folks at Twitter who *just happen to have* access to those tools/systems. What's more likely is a targeted attack on specific individuals *known* to the scammers.

                    That implies a much higher level of organization/planning than some hack scammer lucking into the intrusion of the year.

                    If that was indeed the case, then such a group would have already known what they wanted to do with such access *before* they executed the breach.

                    Then again, a bunch of accounts for Bitcoin exchanges and related businesses were hijacked too. Maybe they were the initial targets, and they got way more access than they ever imagined?

                    As I said at the start of this thread, there are a lot of unanswered questions.

                    I don't know the details or the circumstances. I'd like to find out though.

                    --
                    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
                • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @04:04PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @04:04PM (#1022456)

                  I find it interesting that the best you can do is simply repeat your own mostly word salad conspiracy theory. The internet is melting people's brains.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @09:20AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @09:20AM (#1022338)

      one option is that they thought they were about to be discovered, so they decided to bail out. while they were doing that, they were only able to come up with the stupid bitcoin thing as a last chance to still get something for their effort.
      it only took me about a minute to think of a much more believable lie, so it's still strange...
      (just so that I'm not pointlessly mysterious: replace "send me 1000 and I'll send you 2000 back" with "donate to this account for COVID relief and I will match your donation". I think this would have fooled a lot more than 118 people. and now I'll have to live with the guilt of having put the idea out there...)

  • (Score: 2, Touché) by hemocyanin on Thursday July 16 2020, @04:56AM (1 child)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday July 16 2020, @04:56AM (#1022288) Journal

    If it looks to good to be true...

    ... Accounts belonging to verified users were unable to use the platform ...

    Looks all good from here.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:07PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:07PM (#1022427) Journal

      Hopefully this incident will not affect the administration's plans to modernize the US Nuclear Launch system to receive launch orders via Twitter.

      --
      The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:35PM (1 child)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:35PM (#1022440) Journal
    In Eve Online, which is billed as a hypercapitalist space rpg game, fraud and scamming not only happens, but is heavily encouraged. Jita is the biggest trade hub of the game. And if one leaves the local scope chat on, one gets an endless stream of scams, including the venerable two for one (sometimes several times a minute at the busiest). Amazing that thing still works.
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