Centre issues notice to Twitter over hack targeting high-profile global users

Team Udayavani, Jul 18, 2020, 4:25 PM IST

New Delhi: India’s cybersecurity nodal agency CERT-In has issued a notice to Twitter asking the micro-blogging platform for full details of the recent global hack targeting high-profile users, as it sought complete information on number of Indian users affected as well as impact on data, a source said.

The source privy to the development told news agency Press Trust of India that CERT-In has also asked Twitter for information on number of users from India who have visited the malicious tweets and links, and whether the affected users have been informed by the platform about unauthorised access to their Twitter accounts.

The government has also demanded information of vulnerability exploited by attackers and modus operandi of the attack and sought details of remedial actions taken by Twitter to mitigate the impact of the hacking incident.

Twitter was not immediately available for comments.

Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) swung into action after reports that hackers gained access to Twitter’s systems to hack accounts of many global corporate leaders, politicians, celebrities and businesses.

Cyber attackers had hacked into the Twitter accounts of global high profile users – including former US President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden as well as many corporate leaders including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk – on Wednesday in a purported Bitcoin scam.