Twitter increases security after “God Mode” Bitcoin hack

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Last Updated on 19 September 2020 by CryptoTips.eu

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that his platform would be ramping up security measures just before the 2020 US Election season heats up. The move is not surprising as the company has faced lots of criticism over the great so-called Twitter Bitcoin hack of July of this year.

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17-year-old

Mr Dorsey’s announcement comes after a 17-year-old hacker, who has since been released on bail, was apparently able to hack into the account of former Democratic US President Barack Obama and his Vice-President Joe Biden over the summer, as well as several other celebrities. The crime became so famous that it has since received its own Wikipedia page, entitled the 2020 Twitter bitcoin scam.

Allegedly, the youngster named as G. Ivan Clark, had gotten his idea in the OGUsers forum (OG standing for original gangster), where people sold access to media accounts to each other. He approached a Twitter employee to get the logins to the company’s God mode admin panel (it is rumored Mark Zuckerberg has similar access to Facebook). Afterwards the hacker sent out requests from several well-known accounts asking for Bitcoin.

In response, Twitter has now upped its security protocols, stating that it would take:

The additional step of proactively implementing account security measures for a designated group of high-profile, election-related Twitter accounts in the US.

Starting today, these accounts will be informed via an in-app notification from Twitter of some of the initial account security measures we will be requiring or strongly recommending going forward.

Buterin and Dorsey

The Twitter hack caused a strong reaction from the crypto world at the time, with Ethereum CEO Vitalik Buterin already mentioning that in this manner criminals could manipulate elections.

Meanwhile Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, whose known as a lifelong Bitcoin fan, is keen to not be seen as weak on security and therefore implemented the rules. Last week, the entrepreneur made clear that he believes Bitcoin is the best manifestation of the internet’s desire for a native currency, adding:

I can’t see that changing.