A group of hackers with the name Chuckle Squad on Friday compromised the account of Jack Dorsey, chief executive officer (CEO) of Twitter, microblogging and social networking service.
According to CNN, the attackers oversaw the activities of the account for about 20 minutes.
Shortly after the takeover, the account (@jack) started to release a flurry of racial slurs, antisemitic messages, posts that supported Nazi Germany and some offensive tweets – which have all been deleted as of the time this report was filled.
Following minutes of erratic tweets, Twitter immediately took control of the account and confirmed that someone had hacked it.
It also attributed the fault for the hack to Dorsey’s mobile phone company.
“We’re aware that @jack was compromised and investigating what happened. The phone number associated with the account was compromised due to a security oversight by the mobile provider,” the company wrote.
“This allowed an unauthorized person to compose and send tweets via text message from the phone number. That issue is now resolved.”
We're aware that @jack was compromised and investigating what happened.
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) August 30, 2019
The phone number associated with the account was compromised due to a security oversight by the mobile provider. This allowed an unauthorized person to compose and send tweets via text message from the phone number. That issue is now resolved.
Advertisement— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) August 31, 2019
The social networking giant also disclosed that it was now secure.
“The account is now secure, and there is no indication that Twitter’s systems have been compromised,” it added.
.@Jack’s account has been hacked.
The Tweets are coming from a source called Cloudhopper. Cloudhopper was the name of the company Twitter acquired a long time ago to help bolster their SMS service.
Looks like the hackers are Tweeting via the old SMS service… pic.twitter.com/YcU3DTn9wS
— Sam (@Hooray) August 30, 2019
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The Chuckling Squad, which claimed to be behind the takeover of Dorsey’s account, have had their handle suspended by Twitter.
It is believed that the hack was possible by what is known as a “simswap attack”, “simswapping” or “simjacking”.
The technique is said to have occurred when an existing phone number is transferred to a new sim card, usually after the attackers may have paid or tricked a carrier employee or customer support staff at a mobile provider.
This is not the first time Dorsey will be having his account hijacked by hackers.
In 2016, ‘OurMine’, a security firm took over his account and sent out message about “testing your security.”
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