Published 09:08 IST, July 16th 2020
Twitter hacked but Donald Trump escapes: Here's why the US President's account got away
On Wednesday, a number of high profile Twitter accounts including that of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Joe Biden & Apple were hacked. President Trump's account wasn't
On Wednesday, a number of high profile Twitter accounts including that of US Presidential hopeful Joe Biden, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates and of Apple were simultaneously hacked by attackers to carry out what appeared to be a cryptocurrency scam.
'A special kind of lock-and-key'
However, the United States President Donald Trump's account wasn't hacked. Trump, with 83.5 million followers is an avid user of the platform and frequently tweets his personal and political views. A New York Times report quoting officials said the security breach did not affect Trump's account because it is under a 'special kind of lock-and-key' after past incidents
In 2017, a rogue worker at the company used their access to Twitter’s systems to briefly delete President Trump’s Twitter account. The account was restored within minutes, but the incident raised questions about Twitter’s security.
In a statement released by Twitter three hours later, it was revealed that the account had been “inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee,” Twitter announced that a rogue customer support worker had done it on his or her last day at the company.
'We all feel terrible this happened'
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the fake tweets offered to send $2,000 for every $1,000 sent to a bitcoin address. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a tweet said, "Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened."
Twitter put out a statement noting that it was aware of a “security incident impacting accounts on Twitter.” The company said it is investigating and working to fix it, and promised an update shortly.
Twitter also halted the ability for some accounts to send new tweets following a massive hacker attack on the social media website. "You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address the incident," Twitter Support tweeted.
'I am giving back to the community'
'I am giving back to the community. All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1000, I will send back $2000. Only doing this for 30 minutes!" Joe Biden's now-deleted tweet read.
The apparent scam has also caught the attention of the FBI. "We are aware of today's security incident involving several Twitter accounts belonging to high profile individuals," CNN quoted FBI's San Francisco field office as saying in a statement. "The accounts appear to have been compromised in order to perpetuate cryptocurrency fraud. We advise the public not to fall victim to this scam by sending cryptocurrency or money in relation to this incident."
Updated 09:08 IST, July 16th 2020