Twitter confirms that hackers accessed DMs of at least 36 users including one elected official

Last week Twitter came under a massive attack that compromised accounts of high profile people like Elon Musk, Bill Gates and former President Barak Obama. The attackers ran a Bitcoin financial scam and were able to get away with about $120,000 in Bitcoins.

While at first it looked like hackers were just after money, Twitter has now confirmed that hackers accessed DMs of at least 36 people including an elected official.

We believe that for up to 36 of the 130 targeted accounts, the attackers accessed the DM inbox, including 1 elected official in the Netherlands. To date, we have no indication that any other former or current elected official had their DMs accessed. [Added on July 22, 2020]

– Twitter

In total, the last week’s hack gave hackers access to 130 accounts. Of those 130, hackers were able to initiate a password reset on 45 accounts allowing them to access the accounts, send tweets and access DMs. Hackers were also able to use the “Your Twitter Data” tool to download information (including DMs) of 8 users.