On 15 July, hackers have tried to penetrate 130 accounts, and arrived there 45 of them.

Twitter gave new details on the dramatic attack in mid-July of accounts of celebrities and political figures. Hackers have targeted a handful of employees via a co-ordinated attack phishing by phone, to obtain their credentials.

“The attack was a major attempt and concerted efforts to fool some of the employees and to exploit human to access our internal systems,” explained the social network in a press release Thursday evening. On 15 July, hackers have tried to penetrate 130 accounts, and arrived there 45 of them.

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Among these hacked accounts were political leaders as the democratic candidate for the presidential Joe Biden, former president Barack Obama and big bosses as the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos, the boss of Tesla Elon Musk, or even Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft.

The operation of “phone spear phishing’ (phishing by phone) a “limited significantly the access to our tools and systems,” said Twitter, which investigates and takes steps to strengthen its protections since.

$ 100,000 sent

The method of a scam by phone reminiscent of “the pirates of the 1980s and 1990s – they were very good to rip people off to make them give their credentials,” comments John Dickson, of the firm of cyber security, Denim Group.

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the origin of The attack is not clear but there is nothing to indicate, according to him, that she comes from a foreign State, or is supported by a government. In this case, the aim of the hackers seemed to make money quickly, if we are to believe their mode of operation.

from the hacked accounts, they have sent messages aguicheurs encouraging subscribers to these accounts to send bitcoins, a crypto currency, so-called, in exchange for double the amount sent.

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According to the specialized sites that record the trade of bitcoins, but do not allow to draw the recipients, some 100,000 dollars were sent. The FBI is conducting the investigation in parallel.