This archive report was first published on 17 July 2020.
On July 15, 2020, Twitter faced a massive hack that exposed a worrisome vulnerability in the media environment. The attack, which came in waves, allowed hackers to take over prominent accounts, including those of cryptocurrency leaders and public figures.
According to Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the hack 'signals a worrisome vulnerability in this media environment, exploitable not just for scams but for more impactful efforts to cause confusion, havoc and political mischief.'
The hackers used Twitter's internal tools to take over accounts with distinctive user names, such as @6, an account once belonging to security researcher and hacker Adrian Lamo. They then targeted the Twitter accounts of prominent cryptocurrency leaders and companies, followed by many of the most popular accounts, including those belonging to political leaders, industry titans, and top entertainers.
The hackers posed as public figures on Twitter, promising to match or triple any funds sent to their Bitcoin wallets. This long-running scam was the first to use the real accounts of public figures, resulting in $120,000 worth of Bitcoin being transferred to the hackers' wallet in 518 transactions from around the world.
Most of the victims had Bitcoin wallets associated with Asia, but about a quarter came from the United States, according to cryptocurrency research firm Elliptic. The hackers then moved the money in a complicated pattern of transactions to obscure the source and make it harder to track.
Chainalysis, a research company that tracks the movement of cryptocurrencies, found that the hackers' laundering methods were not sophisticated. 'It looks like someone who has some computer skills, but not someone who is using the most sophisticated ways to launder the coins,' said Jonathan Levin, the chief strategy officer at Chainalysis.
