Update: Twitter Hack Gets Darker – Hackers Stole Private Messages From 8 Accounts.

Twitter, the microblogging site which is no stranger to controversies is fighting hard to stay the course of its most recent and most notorious hack yet.

We reported on Wednesday afternoon that Hackers coordinated simultaneous attacks on prominent crypto Twitter accounts and also took over some high profile Twitter accounts including the likes of Bill Gates , Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kanye West, President Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Wiz Khalifa, Warren Buffett and Apple.
The hackers who pumped a crypto giveaway scam appeared to have compromised the Twitter accounts of leading exchanges, individuals, and at least one news organisation.
 
Twitter confirmed via a series of tweets on Wednesday that a hacker had access to its internal systems and tools to conduct the hack – a tweet which called to question Twitter’s internal policies on protection of its users’ data.

Twitter later confirmed that 130 accounts were targeted in the major cyber-attack of high-profile accounts. However, Twitter says only a “small subset” of those 130 accounts had control seized by the attacker.

Earlier today, Twitter provided its most detailed update since the attack . It was revealed that the attackers accessed direct messages of 8 out of the affected 130 accounts. The data accessed include deleted messages. Attackers were able to view personal information such as emails and phone numbers . Thinking about this is enough to send chills down the spines of affected account owners.

While we all speculate on the reason behind the hacks and actors involved, the microblogging site which had earlier confirmed that the hackers gained access to its internal tools, also stated that the tools were accessed through employees by the use of social engineering tactics. 
Social Engineering in this context refers to the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.(Some Twitter employees have been bugged!)

Twitter promised to revamp its staff training to accommodate some of the issues that have come to fore in this recent hack.

Rolling out additional company-wide training to guard against social engineering tactics to supplement the training employees receive during onboarding and ongoing phishing exercises throughout the year.

One of the steps being taken by Twitter post Hacking Event

It is scary to think about what this particular hack may mean for Twitter because this is not the first time their servers are coming under attack. Twitter’s internal issues may also become its undoing, having had a situation where an employee deleted President Trump’s account.

It may take more than apology to get back to a place of trust especially among high profile users.