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Remember like a year and half ago when some of the most powerful people on the planet had their Twitter accounts hacked in some bitcoin scam and then the story

by slg 5y ago

Remember like a year and half ago when some of the most powerful people on the planet had their Twitter accounts hacked in some bitcoin scam and then the story just sort of went away without any real discussion about how dangerous that could have been if the hackers had different motivations (EDIT: there was an implied "and how to prevent that in the future" here)?

staticassertion 5y ago
Not really. I remember it being a pretty huge deal and everyone talking about how it could have been so much worse. What more did you want?
- ct0 5y ago
  How would we even know if someone has pulled this off again with an entirely different motive and hasn't been discovered as a hack?
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    If Twitter knows about it they're legally obligated to report it.
- mrguyorama 5y ago
  Pretty sure they were implying we never got the how they were hacked. It seemed very unlikely to be credential stuffing or other common things. It seemed more like a rogue inside person or back office hack.
  - aharris6 5y ago
    I think this was answered: https://www.wired.com/story/inside-twitter-hack-election-plan/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-twitter-hack-election-pla...
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    I know how it happened but I don't remember if it's public knowledge or not. I'm pretty sure at least some details made it out.
  - jjulius 5y ago
    >Pretty sure they were implying we never got the how they were hacked. >The Twitter incident began when the hackers connected last year in an online forum focused on buying and selling rare user names, some of the individuals involved told The New York Times at that time. They then broke into Twitter’s systems by tricking employees into providing login information, according to legal filings. The hackers used an administrative tool to take over accounts belonging to political figures and celebrities, including former President Barack Obama, Kanye West and Elon Musk, using the accounts to conduct a Bitcoin scam, the filings said. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/technology/twitter-tiktok-snapchat-hacks.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/technology/twitter-tiktok...
- slg 5y ago
  I guess I phrased that poorly. Yes, there was some discussion about how it could have been worse. However I wanted that discussion to be more than us shrugging our shoulders and saying "we dodged a bullet". There was no real discussion either about standards in the tech industry or political discussions regarding legislative changes in order prevent that worse version from happening in the future. We didn't seem to learn anything from it.
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    That's true of almost every breach though.
    - slg 5y ago
      Should we stop calling out a bad thing just because it isn't the first bad thing of its kind to happen?
      - staticassertion 5y ago
        I guess if your statement is intended to be broad, sure. It seemed targeted to this breach, which yeah I think it's sort of wrong to call out one breach for being exactly like all other breaches.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    What legislative changes could have prevented this or something worse in the future? Every security breach is different and often nuanced.
    - slg 5y ago
      I wanted a discussion about it. I'm just a random developer who doesn't have the perfect answer. Yet some obvious things that might help would be to increase penalties for breaches and potentially require more stringent security auditing for companies of a certain size.
riffic 5y ago
Hacked Twitter accounts[0] are incredibly common. Twitter has been asleep at the wheel. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=hacked+site:https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter https://www.google.com/search?q=hacked+site:https://www.redd...
- dewey 5y ago
  Some credential stuffing attack is way less scary and well known than what happened at Twitter where "Verified" accounts with 2FA got hacked because they were able to take them over with internal tools.
  - riffic 5y ago
    third-party apps are incredibly common and usually have unrestricted access to post or alter profiles. I'm not sure if I buy the internal tool angle here.
    - dewey 5y ago
      Yes, but there's a big difference between random account getting hacked and verified world leader account getting taken over by compromising an internal Twitter system?
      - riffic 5y ago
        I don't think Twitter ever disclosed whether an internal system was compromised or not (if they were, please inform!) Third party app developers are more likely to have been. It's also likely for a third-party dev to have bad intentions. I periodically review and make sure to disable third-party app access to my Twitter accounts. Who's to say your average celeb is likely to do that?
        dewey 5y ago
        https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/15/21326656/twitter-hack-explanation-bitcoin-accounts-employee-tools https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/15/21326656/twitter-hack-exp... > 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 was social engineering, but still access to internal tools which made this bypass possible.
jchw 5y ago
Twitter is not even dealing with hacked accounts anymore. There’s a lot of blatantly hacked accounts that haven’t been recovered and never will be. https://twitter.com/terupancake/status/1484555471054946307 https://twitter.com/terupancake/status/1484555471054946307
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by slg 5y ago

staticassertion 5y ago

Not really. I remember it being a pretty huge deal and everyone talking about how it could have been so much worse. What more did you want?

ct0 5y ago
How would we even know if someone has pulled this off again with an entirely different motive and hasn't been discovered as a hack?
- staticassertion 5y ago
  If Twitter knows about it they're legally obligated to report it.
mrguyorama 5y ago
Pretty sure they were implying we never got the how they were hacked. It seemed very unlikely to be credential stuffing or other common things. It seemed more like a rogue inside person or back office hack.
- aharris6 5y ago
  I think this was answered: https://www.wired.com/story/inside-twitter-hack-election-plan/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-twitter-hack-election-pla...
- staticassertion 5y ago
  I know how it happened but I don't remember if it's public knowledge or not. I'm pretty sure at least some details made it out.
- jjulius 5y ago
  >Pretty sure they were implying we never got the how they were hacked. >The Twitter incident began when the hackers connected last year in an online forum focused on buying and selling rare user names, some of the individuals involved told The New York Times at that time. They then broke into Twitter’s systems by tricking employees into providing login information, according to legal filings. The hackers used an administrative tool to take over accounts belonging to political figures and celebrities, including former President Barack Obama, Kanye West and Elon Musk, using the accounts to conduct a Bitcoin scam, the filings said. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/technology/twitter-tiktok-snapchat-hacks.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/technology/twitter-tiktok...
slg 5y ago
I guess I phrased that poorly. Yes, there was some discussion about how it could have been worse. However I wanted that discussion to be more than us shrugging our shoulders and saying "we dodged a bullet". There was no real discussion either about standards in the tech industry or political discussions regarding legislative changes in order prevent that worse version from happening in the future. We didn't seem to learn anything from it.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  That's true of almost every breach though.
  - slg 5y ago
    Should we stop calling out a bad thing just because it isn't the first bad thing of its kind to happen?
    - staticassertion 5y ago
      I guess if your statement is intended to be broad, sure. It seemed targeted to this breach, which yeah I think it's sort of wrong to call out one breach for being exactly like all other breaches.
- azinman2 5y ago
  What legislative changes could have prevented this or something worse in the future? Every security breach is different and often nuanced.
  - slg 5y ago
    I wanted a discussion about it. I'm just a random developer who doesn't have the perfect answer. Yet some obvious things that might help would be to increase penalties for breaches and potentially require more stringent security auditing for companies of a certain size.

riffic 5y ago

Hacked Twitter accounts[0] are incredibly common. Twitter has been asleep at the wheel. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=hacked+site:https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter https://www.google.com/search?q=hacked+site:https://www.redd...

dewey 5y ago
Some credential stuffing attack is way less scary and well known than what happened at Twitter where "Verified" accounts with 2FA got hacked because they were able to take them over with internal tools.
- riffic 5y ago
  third-party apps are incredibly common and usually have unrestricted access to post or alter profiles. I'm not sure if I buy the internal tool angle here.
  - dewey 5y ago
    Yes, but there's a big difference between random account getting hacked and verified world leader account getting taken over by compromising an internal Twitter system?
    - riffic 5y ago
      I don't think Twitter ever disclosed whether an internal system was compromised or not (if they were, please inform!) Third party app developers are more likely to have been. It's also likely for a third-party dev to have bad intentions. I periodically review and make sure to disable third-party app access to my Twitter accounts. Who's to say your average celeb is likely to do that?
      - dewey 5y ago
        https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/15/21326656/twitter-hack-explanation-bitcoin-accounts-employee-tools https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/15/21326656/twitter-hack-exp... > 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 was social engineering, but still access to internal tools which made this bypass possible.

jchw 5y ago

Twitter is not even dealing with hacked accounts anymore. There’s a lot of blatantly hacked accounts that haven’t been recovered and never will be. https://twitter.com/terupancake/status/1484555471054946307 https://twitter.com/terupancake/status/1484555471054946307

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]