Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s Account Was Hacked
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s account was hacked on the social media platform. As an article by Business Insider reports, the account raised alarm on Friday when it started sending out a string of racist and anti-semitic tweets. The tweets have been deleted, but the screenshots are circulating on Twitter, nevertheless.
“We’re aware that @jack was compromised and investigating what happened,” the company’s communications team tweeted Friday.
Boing Boing reports that it looks like the hackers used an app called Cloudhopper to get access to his account. Cloudhopper allows you to tweet via SMS. So the hackers likely faked that they were tweeting from his phone number and that’s how those offensive tweets were broadcast to the world.
As The Verge notes, the hackers also used their brief time on Jack Dorsey’s account to encourage people to join their Discord server. Discord is a chat and texting app originally created for gamers. The link the hackers shared with Dorsey’s 4.2 million followers no longer works.
Dorsey is the latest in a growing list of prominent public figures who have had their Twitter accounts breached. So far that list includes YouTubers James Charles, Shane Dawson, and comedian King Bach. According to The Verge, the Twitter CEO may have been targeted by the same group of hackers.
The name of the hacker group that targeted them appears to be Chuckling Squad. Twitter has since said that their systems weren’t breached so it looks like the only reason the account was hacked was that Dorsey’s phone is still connected to Cloudhopper’s service.
The news of the security breach caused Dorsey’s name to trend on the app that he co-founded.
Amidst the jokes and memes, some expressed the concern that if Jack Dorsey can get hacked on Twitter, then it can happen to anyone on the platform.
This is not the first time that Jack Dorsey’s account has been compromised. In 2016, internet security firm OurMine hacked his account in an apparent PR move. They used the access to his account to tweet about the importance of “testing your security,” The Verge notes. OurMine also hacked the Twitter accounts of high-profile CEOs like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai.
As TechCrunch reports, Zuckerberg’s hack was somewhat embarrassing because it revealed that it did not use two-factor authentication to secure his account. He also had a password that was easy to figure out, which caused many to joke about the Facebook founder.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s account has been hacked https://t.co/RAzMFqCJcI pic.twitter.com/g2LDYfei5K
— The Verge (@verge) August 30, 2019
