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I imagine that the limited damage the attackers did will help them evade being caught. Ultimately, they just stole some 100k$ in Bitcoin and that's it, so inves

I imagine that the limited damage the attackers did will help them evade being caught. Ultimately, they just stole some 100k$ in Bitcoin and that's it, so investigations by the FBI et al. will probably not go to great lengths to locate the hackers. On the other hand, attempts to blackmail someone like Tim Cook or Elon Musk would probably be riskier. For the same reason, I suspect the attackers may have intentionally avoided breaching or tweeting from Trump's account, too much risk of attracting serious FBI and Secret Service attention. As it is, the only people who actually lost something are a bunch of Bitcoin owners that got scammed, and it's just not a big deal.

toyg 6y ago
In the great scheme of things, knowing what Trump (or any other US politician) says to other people is worth relatively little. Having insider knowledge of what certain billionaires say to whom, though, can be immensely valuable. It might well be that a few of them will lit a fire under FBI and friends. We'll see.
- ACS_Solver 6y ago
  Most of those famous people don't manage their own accounts though. Some do, like Musk. That's why I'd consider stealing his DMs to be more dangerous than running a Bitcoin scam - it could easily upset Musk enough that he bugs the FBI to investigate seriously or, more likely, uses his own considerable resources to run an investigation. See how Bezos hired investigators when his data was leaked, and they did get to the bottom of it. Trump is a bit of a special case because he's POTUS. I'm pretty sure there are no remotely interesting DMs on his account, but if there's one thing the US doesn't like, it's anyone even perceived of messing with national security. An attacker merely logging into Trump's account could be seen as a national security issue, and attract an entirely different level of law enforcement attention.

toyg 6y ago

In the great scheme of things, knowing what Trump (or any other US politician) says to other people is worth relatively little. Having insider knowledge of what certain billionaires say to whom, though, can be immensely valuable. It might well be that a few of them will lit a fire under FBI and friends. We'll see.

ACS_Solver 6y ago
Most of those famous people don't manage their own accounts though. Some do, like Musk. That's why I'd consider stealing his DMs to be more dangerous than running a Bitcoin scam - it could easily upset Musk enough that he bugs the FBI to investigate seriously or, more likely, uses his own considerable resources to run an investigation. See how Bezos hired investigators when his data was leaked, and they did get to the bottom of it. Trump is a bit of a special case because he's POTUS. I'm pretty sure there are no remotely interesting DMs on his account, but if there's one thing the US doesn't like, it's anyone even perceived of messing with national security. An attacker merely logging into Trump's account could be seen as a national security issue, and attract an entirely different level of law enforcement attention.