Twitter has admitted that the naughty folk who hijacked verified accounts last week read a portion of hacked users’ direct messages.
Among the 36 Twitter users whose direct messages (DMs), email addresses and phone numbers were definitely accessed by account hijackers last week was one Dutch politician, the microblogging platform said overnight.
“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,” Twitter said in an updated post.
The hack happened after an individual or persons unknown gained access to Twitter’s administrative tools, allegedly after bribing a company insider.
As we reported last week, a number of Twitter accounts belonging to high-profile individuals were compromised. Those accounts all have blue ticks, indicating that they really do belong to whomever’s name and mugshot they bear.
Robin Edgar
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