Twitter Shares Trip After Infiltration Into High-Profile Accounts

On Wednesday, hackers accessed the social media company’s internal system to hijack twitter accounts of several politicians, billionaires, celebrities, and companies. Due to this, the next day shares of Twitter Inc dropped by more than 4% in the pre-marketing trend. 

Twitter said that these hackers targeted the employees with access to its internal systems and tweeted on their behalf and used this access to take control of many highly visible accounts. In an unprecedented step, Twitter investigated the breach and temporarily prevented the many verified accounts from publishing messages.

The twitter handles of U.S presidential candidate Joe Biden, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, former US President Barack Obama, and billionaire Elon Musk were infiltrated to solicit digital currency.

Edgewater Research Analyst Joe Wittnie told Reuters in an email that “the hack certainly doesn’t help; rather it will pose more of a reputational risk versus material near-term risk to advertising”.  

Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey tweeted on Wednesday that it was a tough day for everyone at Twitter and pledged to share everything they can and when they have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened. 

Other prominent records that were hacked included rapper Kanye West, Amazon originator Jeff Bezos, financial specialist Warren Buffett, Microsoft Corp fellow benefactor Bill Gates, and the corporate records for Uber and Apple Inc. A few records of cryptocurrency-focused associations were also hijacked. 

Openly accessible blockchain records show that the apparent scammers received more than $100,000 worth of cryptocurrency.