Cybersecurity Policy Report, New York AG Launches Investigation Into Twitter Hack, (Jul 20, 2020)
Organizations Mentioned:Twitter
By Jeff Williams
New York Attorney General Letitia James (D.) has announced that she has opened an investigation into the hack affecting the Twitter accounts of numerous political figures, celebrities, business leaders, and others, which occurred last week.
“Countless Americans rely on Twitter to read and watch the news, to engage in public debate, and to hear directly from political leaders, activists, business executives, and other thought leaders,” Ms. James said. "The attack on Twitter raises serious concerns about data security and how platforms like Twitter could be used to harm public debate. I have ordered my office to open an immediate investigation into this matter.”
Twitter said that “based on what we know now,” approximately 130 accounts were targeted in the cyber attack. “For a small subset of these accounts, the attackers were able to gain control of the accounts and then send Tweets from those accounts,” Twitter said.
The company said it had “been taking aggressive steps to secure our systems while our investigations are ongoing. We’re still in the process of assessing longer-term steps that we may take and will share more details as soon as we can.”
The attack reportedly affected accounts including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffett, among others, and resulted in Twitter locking many accounts for a time, including all verified accounts.
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