6 ms·

July 15 Twitter Attacks

17 points by samberry 6y ago

rozab 6y ago
I am convinced the supposed hackers, as identified by krebsonsecurity, are patsies. The purpose of the attack was to undermine confidence in Twitter as a platform, which is why the attack was intentionally amateurish.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  [Me dons tinfoil hat.] It's a false flag operation. Trump realized that his tweets have become a political liability, so he had this done so that he can claim that someone hacked his account and posted all this weird stuff on it. [Me takes off tinfoil hat.] More seriously, what would the point be? Stock price manipulation? Making users think about moving to another platform? Political? International espionage? [Edit: Since everyone seems to have missed it, the part inside the "tinfoil hat" blocks was not intended to be taken seriously. I expected it to be interpreted as a /s, but apparently it was not.]
  - nurettin 6y ago
    That hat appears to have lingering effects.
    - yetanta 6y ago
      Its cheap tin foil it got in their hair
  - applecrazy 6y ago
    > he had this done so that he can claim that someone hacked his account This is false for a number of reasons. After Trump’s Twitter was deleted briefly by a rogue contractor, they placed safeguards on his account to ensure that it never happened again.(1) As such, he was not affected by the hack. (1): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/technology/trump-twitter-deleted.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/technology/trump-twitter-...
- nradov 6y ago
  As a social media user myself, anything which undermines confidence in social media platforms can only be a positive.
- wisemanwillhear 6y ago
  I'm often struck with how poorly though through most decisions tend to be. Even detail oriented tech people can be rash and short sighted. Perhaps he was a lone hacker whose surprise success was like money burning a hole in his pocket. Perhaps something spooked him and he was fearful of his breach being discovered.
- deckar01 6y ago
  2 weeks after TikTok is publicly shamed for data harvesting, Twitter gets split wide open. If TikTok wanted to improve their reputation without changing their bad practices, they could start by delegitimizing their competition.
motohagiography 6y ago
The attacks as described forfeited a giant amount of leverage. It was like breaching a bank vault and just stealing some rolls of coins. By doing something high profile, the attackers gave up any shot at persistence inside the infrastructure, and didn't even show any forethought on political options. It's like some employee's kid using their parents device got hacked by his schoolmates. However, we can probably surmise that if people this dumb are inside the platform, smarter attackers are in there too.
- lliamander 6y ago
  I think the real purpose had to do with capturing the DMs of high-profile people for blackmail or other nefarious purposes.
  - eslaught 6y ago
    But if that was your goal, why wouldn't you just remain silent and allow your targets to continue to use the platform? Presumably a live data feed is strictly better than one than one that immediately dries up.
    - marcinzm 6y ago
      The attack requires changing the email and disabling mfa, the target and Twitter would know pretty quickly. You also have no way to prove to outside parties that you actually had control the account afterwards. This way there is trivial proof that you had control of the account by simply sending some btc from the address.
    - jaywalk 6y ago
      They got their access by changing email addresses and disabling 2FA. There was no way to remain undetected.
  - gmm1990 6y ago
    That makes more sense and this way they can prove at least prove they have the bitcoin private keys. Reduces some of the deniability that the DMs were faked.
kylewins 6y ago
There is a few stories from the book "Sandworm" which government hacker teams infiltrated a system and used cheesy bitcoin heist as a cover up for the real purpose.
GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
I was leaning towards this being some sort of state-sponsored business, but typically they aren't going to draw this much attention to themselves. It seems pretty easy to infiltrate Twitter as a state sponsored spy, however. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/06/777098293/2-former-twitter-employees-charged-with-spying-for-saudi-arabia https://www.npr.org/2019/11/06/777098293/2-former-twitter-em...
jwilk 6y ago
Archived copy that works with JS disabled: https://archive.md/QRxju https://archive.md/QRxju
- proactivesvcs 6y ago
  Thanks, the original redirects to a suspended page now.
- samberry 6y ago
  Thank you - my site has been suspended for 24 hours after too many hits at once.
easterncalculus 6y ago
I am definitely convinced that there is something more to this story that we don't know about yet. Insider access like this is expensive - too much for the bitcoin they made. The direct messages of the accounts involved could be priceless. People really do talk about such private things over sites like Twitter, and it's all so low return for what is easily one of the largest blue check account breach incidents. The scale of this is too much to ignore to me.
- abhorrence 6y ago
  Insider access may not be as expensive as you think. Some of the lowest paid employees (e.g. customer service like roles) at tech companies have relatively broad access to systems. Those employees routinely underestimate both the likelihood that they’ll be caught, and what the consequences will be.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
    To be honest, the bar to being tried is pretty high... you can always claim someone stole your phone with your 2FA (if it's being used) and that you reused a password. Getting fired is likely but someone getting paid a couple of dollars in India could flip you for $10,000 just as well as someone in the US could flip you for $1,000,000.
    - abhorrence 6y ago
      It depends on the type of employee. Customer service agents typically don’t work from home (apart from our current situation of course). They often don’t have access to their equipment outside of working hours. This makes it quite a bit more likely that they’ll be charged with some sort of crime. When you’re someone making near minimum wage in the US, at a job you don’t particularly like, I think the number ends up being significantly lower than a million.
freddyym 6y ago
> Somebody with the ability to pull off such a sophisticated attack would surely be above a low-income bitcoin scam. Personally, I think the scam is a mere cover-up for something much darker. This. These bitcoin-type scams have around for ages and people are getting used to them. With this much power (aka number of accounts) why bother with such a low effort con. Though I don't like this talk as it fuels pointless conspiracy.

17 points by samberry 6y ago

I am convinced the supposed hackers, as identified by krebsonsecurity, are patsies. The purpose of the attack was to undermine confidence in Twitter as a platform, which is why the attack was intentionally amateurish.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
[Me dons tinfoil hat.] It's a false flag operation. Trump realized that his tweets have become a political liability, so he had this done so that he can claim that someone hacked his account and posted all this weird stuff on it. [Me takes off tinfoil hat.] More seriously, what would the point be? Stock price manipulation? Making users think about moving to another platform? Political? International espionage? [Edit: Since everyone seems to have missed it, the part inside the "tinfoil hat" blocks was not intended to be taken seriously. I expected it to be interpreted as a /s, but apparently it was not.]
- nurettin 6y ago
  That hat appears to have lingering effects.
  - yetanta 6y ago
    Its cheap tin foil it got in their hair
- applecrazy 6y ago
  > he had this done so that he can claim that someone hacked his account This is false for a number of reasons. After Trump’s Twitter was deleted briefly by a rogue contractor, they placed safeguards on his account to ensure that it never happened again.(1) As such, he was not affected by the hack. (1): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/technology/trump-twitter-deleted.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/technology/trump-twitter-...
nradov 6y ago
As a social media user myself, anything which undermines confidence in social media platforms can only be a positive.
wisemanwillhear 6y ago
I'm often struck with how poorly though through most decisions tend to be. Even detail oriented tech people can be rash and short sighted. Perhaps he was a lone hacker whose surprise success was like money burning a hole in his pocket. Perhaps something spooked him and he was fearful of his breach being discovered.
deckar01 6y ago
2 weeks after TikTok is publicly shamed for data harvesting, Twitter gets split wide open. If TikTok wanted to improve their reputation without changing their bad practices, they could start by delegitimizing their competition.

motohagiography 6y ago

The attacks as described forfeited a giant amount of leverage. It was like breaching a bank vault and just stealing some rolls of coins. By doing something high profile, the attackers gave up any shot at persistence inside the infrastructure, and didn't even show any forethought on political options. It's like some employee's kid using their parents device got hacked by his schoolmates. However, we can probably surmise that if people this dumb are inside the platform, smarter attackers are in there too.

lliamander 6y ago
I think the real purpose had to do with capturing the DMs of high-profile people for blackmail or other nefarious purposes.
- eslaught 6y ago
  But if that was your goal, why wouldn't you just remain silent and allow your targets to continue to use the platform? Presumably a live data feed is strictly better than one than one that immediately dries up.
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    The attack requires changing the email and disabling mfa, the target and Twitter would know pretty quickly. You also have no way to prove to outside parties that you actually had control the account afterwards. This way there is trivial proof that you had control of the account by simply sending some btc from the address.
  - jaywalk 6y ago
    They got their access by changing email addresses and disabling 2FA. There was no way to remain undetected.
- gmm1990 6y ago
  That makes more sense and this way they can prove at least prove they have the bitcoin private keys. Reduces some of the deniability that the DMs were faked.

kylewins 6y ago

There is a few stories from the book "Sandworm" which government hacker teams infiltrated a system and used cheesy bitcoin heist as a cover up for the real purpose.

GaryNumanVevo 6y ago

I was leaning towards this being some sort of state-sponsored business, but typically they aren't going to draw this much attention to themselves. It seems pretty easy to infiltrate Twitter as a state sponsored spy, however. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/06/777098293/2-former-twitter-employees-charged-with-spying-for-saudi-arabia https://www.npr.org/2019/11/06/777098293/2-former-twitter-em...

jwilk 6y ago

Archived copy that works with JS disabled: https://archive.md/QRxju https://archive.md/QRxju

proactivesvcs 6y ago
Thanks, the original redirects to a suspended page now.
samberry 6y ago
Thank you - my site has been suspended for 24 hours after too many hits at once.

easterncalculus 6y ago

I am definitely convinced that there is something more to this story that we don't know about yet. Insider access like this is expensive - too much for the bitcoin they made. The direct messages of the accounts involved could be priceless. People really do talk about such private things over sites like Twitter, and it's all so low return for what is easily one of the largest blue check account breach incidents. The scale of this is too much to ignore to me.

abhorrence 6y ago
Insider access may not be as expensive as you think. Some of the lowest paid employees (e.g. customer service like roles) at tech companies have relatively broad access to systems. Those employees routinely underestimate both the likelihood that they’ll be caught, and what the consequences will be.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  To be honest, the bar to being tried is pretty high... you can always claim someone stole your phone with your 2FA (if it's being used) and that you reused a password. Getting fired is likely but someone getting paid a couple of dollars in India could flip you for $10,000 just as well as someone in the US could flip you for $1,000,000.
  - abhorrence 6y ago
    It depends on the type of employee. Customer service agents typically don’t work from home (apart from our current situation of course). They often don’t have access to their equipment outside of working hours. This makes it quite a bit more likely that they’ll be charged with some sort of crime. When you’re someone making near minimum wage in the US, at a job you don’t particularly like, I think the number ends up being significantly lower than a million.

freddyym 6y ago

> Somebody with the ability to pull off such a sophisticated attack would surely be above a low-income bitcoin scam. Personally, I think the scam is a mere cover-up for something much darker. This. These bitcoin-type scams have around for ages and people are getting used to them. With this much power (aka number of accounts) why bother with such a low effort con. Though I don't like this talk as it fuels pointless conspiracy.