Twitter Hacking Incident Raise Concerns about the Platform’s Security

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON, KOMPAS.com – A massive Twitter hacking incident happened on July 15 that has drawn concerns from experts about the social media platform’s security and resilience in the run-up to the US presidential election.

Hackers successfully hijacked the accounts of some of the social media platform's high-profile users including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kim Kardashian, and Elon Musk.

It is believed that hackers obtained control of Twitter employee credentials particularly staff members with access to internal systems and tools.

In a series of tweets, the company said, "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."

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The hackers then "used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf."

The company statements confirmed the fears of security experts that the service itself — rather than users — had been compromised.

Twitter's role as a critical communications platform for political candidates and public officials, including President Donald Trump, has led to fears that hackers could wreak havoc with the Nov. 3 presidential election or otherwise compromise national security.

Adam Conner, vice president for technology policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank, said on Twitter: "This is bad on July 15 but would be infinitely worse on November 3rd."

Bitcoin bounty

Posing as celebrities and the wealthy, the hackers asked followers to send the digital currency bitcoin to a series of addresses.

By evening, 400 bitcoin transfers were made worth a combined $120,000.

Half of the victims had funds in US bitcoin exchanges, a quarter in Europe and a quarter in Asia, according to forensics company Elliptic.

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Those transfers left a history that could help investigators identify the perpetrators of the hack.