Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultaneous attack

Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by ilarum on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:00PM (#23851737)

The email address associated with the account(s) appear to have been changed as well: https://twitter.com/sniko_/status/1283485972286656517

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by lessname on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @04:55PM (#23851660)

I do not think that a 3rd party tweet scheduling program has been hacked, because the tweets say they have been sent by “Twitter Web App”. Maybe the new feature on twitter.com to schedule tweets has a security vulnerability?

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by MattBearman on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @04:49PM (#23851557)

One theory is it's a tweet scheduling platform, rather than Twitter itself that was hacked.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by ceejayoz on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:09PM (#23851876)

No. Clicking into a tweet shows you which app was used to post it. https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/how-to-tweet#sourc...

These tweets are showing up as being posted from the Twitter web interface.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by kuschku on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:13PM (#23851919)

Tweets posted through Twitter's ads platform, even non-ads scheduled tweets, will show up as normal twitter web posts.

And approved partners can use the corresponding API to post this way.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by nannal on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:17PM (#23851986)

I've not checked twitter api docs but I've seen stuff like "Posted from: Zombo smart fridge" and was under the impression an app could fill that field in with whatever they like.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by ceejayoz on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:19PM (#23852017)

No, it's the name of the app, which undergoes Twitter review.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by madeofpalk on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:30PM (#23852171)

Nope, it's definitely not pre-reviewed https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/atlayx/how...

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by ceejayoz on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:36PM (#23852272)

It is now. Twitter has made all new apps by application only. A bunch of folks lost their “just for one” ones last year to this.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by throwaway43234 on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @06:10PM (#23852817)

Its not hard to fathom that someone who was able to pull off a hack like this could have also found a way to mess with the metadata there.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by mod on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @07:12PM (#23853569)

It kinda is, if the premise is "they hacked a 3rd party app"

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by maest on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @06:14PM (#23852881)

Idle speculation isn't very helpful.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by throwaway43234 on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @06:23PM (#23853005)

Parent takes the posted-from metadata as absolute truth.

I say it can't be relied upon when an active & involved hack is underway.

You provide nothing of value. What do you think this entire thread is, but for idle speculation?

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by shawnz on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:18PM (#23852001)

But is it necessarily true that the authentication token was generated with the same app used to post the tweets?

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by tqkxzugoaupvwqr on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @04:51PM (#23851588)

Suggestion on Twitter is a third-party app that has write access to the accounts was compromised.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by lima on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @04:50PM (#23851576)

Might be a third party client, browser extension, insider threat... not necessarily a compromise of the Twitter backend.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by actuator on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @04:48PM (#23851544)

Some folks are saying some of these accounts had 2FA, so can be the case but I guess if it was a system thing, we might have seen tweets from more prominent accounts.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by a3r0 on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @04:49PM (#23851556)

You would think they would do something with Trump if it was arbitrary accounts. But maybe his has additional protections

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by nathancahill on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @04:57PM (#23851688)

I believe I read something (trying to find it) about Twitter internally having additional protections on Trump's account. Only a handful of people within Twitter can touch it.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by Firebrand on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @06:09PM (#23852800)

It was likely after this incident:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41854482

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by marcinzm on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:36PM (#23852269)

They're clearly trying to avoid the risk of being tracked. For example, they could have done stock manipulation and made more money. Trump is someone with the power and craziness to spend a hundred million tracking you down and literally dropping bombs on your head. So it'd be poor risk management to go after his account.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by Covzire on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:48PM (#23852461)

I agree, but only until the bombings, I mean he's the most anti-war president in living memory.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by patagurbon on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @07:04PM (#23853477)

He killed a general from an opposition nation state...

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by marcinzm on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:50PM (#23852484)

Bombing != war. Trump administration has had plenty of people killed by drone strikes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iran-strike-live-update...

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by clairity on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @05:52PM (#23852537)

yup, trump hates war because it's bad for the businesses he's in (like real estate and luxury branding), but drone strikes don't have that downside.

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Re:Hackers take over prominent Twitter accounts in simultane... by kzrdude on Thursday July 16, 2020 @03:54AM (#23856796)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world/asia/moab-mother-of...

> President Trump has bestowed additional authority on the Pentagon in his first months in office, which the military has argued will help it defeat the Islamic State more speedily. Mr. Trump did not say whether he had personally approved Thursday’s mission.

> “What I do is I authorize my military,” Mr. Trump said after a meeting with emergency workers at the White House. He called the bombing “another very, very successful mission.”

I think we can imagine being more anti-war than Trump.

Do you remember Jimmy Carter? Being anti-war means deescalation, diplomacy and solving problems without violence.

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