Hackers obtained Twitter DMs for 36 high-profile account holders

Enlarge (credit: Kevin Krejci)

Hackers accessed direct messages for 36 high-profile account holders in last week’s epic compromise of Twitter, with one of the affected users being an elected official from the Netherlands, the social media company said late Wednesday. The company also said the intruders were able to view email addresses, phone numbers, and other personal information for all 130 hijacked accounts.

The mass-account takeover came to light last Wednesday when some of the world’s best-known celebrities, politicians, and executives began tweeting links to Bitcoin scams. A handful of the account holders included Vice President Joe Biden, philanthropist and former Microsoft founder, CEO, and Chairman Bill Gates, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk, and pop star Kanye West. A few hours later, Twitter officials said the incident was the result of it losing control of its internal administrative systems to hackers who either paid, tricked, or coerced one or more company employees. The officials said they would disclose any other malicious activities those responsible may have undertaken as an investigation continued.

A breathtaking impact

On Wednesday, Twitter provided its most troubling update so far. It said:

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