Twitter hack: Most accounts can tweet as normal now

Washington, July 16: Most accounts should be able to tweet again as normal, Twitter said after a major hacking incident of several verified handles, including that of Barrack Obama was reported.

Most accounts should be able to Tweet again. As we continue working on a fix, this functionality may come and go. We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, Twitter said.

Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened. We're diagnosing and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened. Love to our teammates working hard to make this right, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in a tweet.

Tough day for us says Twitter CEO, Dorsey on high profile handles being hacked

We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly, Twitter said.

The Twitter accounts several prominent political and business leaders, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Bill Gates were hacked on Wednesday afternoon, in an attempt to promote a Bitcoin scam.

The attacks were coordinated in nature. The accounts of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Kanye West, Uber Technologies Inc., Apple Inc. and Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, were also hacked.

The accounts sent out tweets promising to double the money of anyone sending funds via Bitcoin within 30 minutes.

As the hack unfold, verified Twitter accounts lost the ability to post new tweets."You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident," Twitter wrote on its support account.

Twitter accounts of Obama, Gates, Biden hacked in Bitcoin scam

Twitter said that it is aware of the security incident impacting its accounts and is probing the incident. Some of the Twitter accounts that were targeted said they had used two factor authentication and strong passwords. These tweets however indicate that they were posting using Twitter's web application.

Story first published: Thursday, July 16, 2020, 8:47 [IST]