New details of the hacker attack on Twitter: they assure that they downloaded data from several affected accounts

07/20/2020 - 15:40

• Clarín.com
• Technology

The cyberattack suffered by the social network Twitter on July 15 completely moved the company. Almost simultaneously, the Internet social network began an internal investigation to determine the magnitude of this scandal and from which it transpired on Monday that hackers managed to download the data and activity of several of the affected accounts with a platform-specific tool .

Twitter began to share the advances of the investigation that it carries out on the hacking of July 15, by which the verified accounts of personalities such as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates , former US President Barack Obama or Tesla CEO Elon Musk , They were used to carry out cryptocurrency scams.

The attack, as the company itself acknowledged, required hackers to access company tools and employee privileges, which they obtained through social engineering techniques .

Former US President Barack Obama, along with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. (EFE Photo, File)

In this way, they were able to direct their attack at 130 accounts and carry out actions on 45 of them: reset the password, log in and send 'tweets. The company does not rule out an attempt to sell some usernames.

In addition, Twitter indicates that the hackers accessed data from eight of the accounts involved in this attack, which were not verified. Specifically, she explains that through the tool that allows the account details to be downloaded, they accessed information about it, such as activity.

In summary, the company says that for "the vast majority of people", the attackers could not see the private information of their accounts, but that in the case of the 130 attacked accounts, it was possible.

In this sense, they point out that hackers could not access old passwords , because they were not saved in plain text or available in the tools used by attackers.

However, they were able to see private information such as email addresses or phone numbers, and in the case of those accounts over which they took control, they could have accessed "additional information".

Source: DPA