Twitter has shed some light on the unprecedented attack on Wednesday that resulted in numerous takeovers of high-profile accounts including those of President Barack Obama, Democratic candidate Joe Biden, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. In a series of tweets posted this evening under its support channel, Twitter said that its internal systems were compromised by the hackers, confirming theories that the attack could not have been conducted without access to the company’s own tools and employee privileges.
“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,” the first tweet in a multi-tweet explainer thread reads. “We know they used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf.”
It seems as if Twitter is acknowledging here that numerous people appear to have been involved in the hacks, not just one individual, and also that numerous employees were compromised, too.
Cybersecurity experts warned that this type of breach, where influential accounts are taken over, could have devastating effects if used for something more dangerous than to take money from unsuspecting users. The consequences could be greater if it involved an account like Trump’s or spread misinformation on some type of global security threat.
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