Musk blames Wall Street watchdog for Twitter hack
ELON MUSK’S Twitter has blamed a security lapse by a Wall Street regulator for a hack of its social media account by Bitcoin scammers.
Late on Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’S Twitter account shared a message claiming it had approved a Bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF), a type of investment that would track the value of the cryptocurrency. The price of Bitcoin briefly spiked on the news, before the SEC swiftly disavowed the statement and said its account had been compromised.
In a post on Twitter, which was shared by Mr Musk, the company said the breach was not the result of any lapses in its systems but the SEC’S fault for failing to turn on extra security features. It said: “Based on our investigation, the compromise was not due to any breach of X’s systems, but rather due to an unidentified individual obtaining control over a phone number associated with the SEC account through a third party.
“We can also confirm the account did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time the account was compromised. We encourage all users to enable this extra layer of security.”
The fake post from the SEC account said the US market regulator “grants approval for Bitcoin ETFS for listing on all national registered exchanges”, and featured a quote from the watchdog’s chief executive Gary Gensler. The price of Bitcoin briefly jumped to $47,900 (£37,628), before crashing around 3pc.
A spokesman for the SEC said the post on its account had not been drafted by the agency.
The spokesman added: “The SEC continues to investigate the matter and is co-ordinating with appropriate law enforcement entities.”