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Sen. Josh Hawley Asks Twitter If Recent Breach Resulted in Data Theft

A recent cyberattack that targeted several prominent Twitter users is sparking fears about the platform’s security and the safety of users’ data. Sen. Josh Hawley ( R-Mo.) penned a letter to Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey to…

Bradley CortrightJul 16, 20203 min read

Read Hawley’s letter below:

On Wednesday night, Twitter released a series of tweets addressing “what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack.”

“We know they used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf. We’re looking into what other malicious activity they may have conducted or information they may have accessed and will share more here as we have it,” the platform added.

https://Twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283591848729219073

In response to the breach, Twitterpaused the ability of verified accounts from publishing messages until it determined it was safe to restore access to the accounts.

The FBI’s office released a statement on the incident, “We are aware of today’s security incident involving several Twitter accounts belonging to high profile individuals.”

“The accounts appear to have been compromised in order to perpetuate cryptocurrency fraud. We advise the public not to fall victim to this scam by sending cryptocurrency or money in relation to this incident,” the statement added.