UNITED STATES—On Wednesday, July 15, Twitter reported that over 100 “high profile” accounts were hacked, including Elon Musk’s and Kanye West’s accounts. The attack targeted several accounts in episodes over several hours. Later that day, all high profiled verified accounts that were affected were shut down and then restored later in the evening.
After becoming aware of the attack, Twitter Support posted a tweet on July 15 that announced:
“We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update. You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident.”
Twitter is now investigating who the hackers are, and how the hackers got ahold of accounts in the first place. On July 18, Twitter provided some updates into the details of the hack.
The company posted in an update on July 18, “The most important question for people who use Twitter is likely-did the attackers see any of my private information?” For the vast majority of people, we believe the answer is, no.”
“As of now, we know that they accessed tools only available to our internal support teams to target 130 Twitter accounts. For 45 of those accounts, the attackers were able to initiate a password reset, login to the account, and send Tweets,” the company explained in an updated on July 16.
Although Twitter has gained some more clarity into exactly what happened, the investigation still remains open and ongoing. The company has publicly stated that more updates will be provided as they become available.
“We embarrassed, we’re disappointed, and more than anything, we’re sorry,” the company further added in a public statement.
