The official Twitter account of the SEC compromised, used to promote fake bitcoin news
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The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) experienced a security breach on its official Twitter account, @SECGov. Gary Gensler, the Chair of the SEC Chair acknowledged that the account had been tampered with, resulting in the distribution of unauthorized tweets.
Although Twitter did not directly respond to WIRED's inquiries, the company did acknowledge the security lapse in a tweet. They confirmed the @SECGov account was indeed hacked, attributing the breach to an external party gaining control over a phone number linked to the account through a third party, not due to any vulnerability in Twitter's systems. At the time of the breach, the account lacked two-factor authentication.
The recent breach of the SEC's Twitter account is particularly significant, given its potential impact on public trust and market stability.
The compromised account published a post about the regulatory standing of Bitcoin ETFs, along with a fabricated quote attributed to Gensler, which has since been deleted. This misinformation momentarily influenced Bitcoin's value, causing a brief 2.5% increase to nearly $47,870, followed by a 3.2% drop from its initial price.
This incident marks the fourth Twitter account breach in two weeks, following the hacking of cybersecurity firm Mandiant's Twitter account, the account of the CEO of Polychain Capital and the account of Certik - a Web3 security outfit. Concerns have been raised about Twitter's ability to maintain platform security, especially following owner Elon Musk's substantial staff reductions over the past year.
