SAN FRANCISCO
Twitter
has said the account of chief executive Jack Dorsey had been
"compromised" after a series of erratic and offensive messages were
posted.
The tweets containing racial
slurs and suggestions about a bomb showed up around 2000 GMT on the
@jack account of the founder of the short messaging service before being
deleted.
PROBE
Some of the tweets contained the hashtag #ChucklingSquad which was believed to indicate the identity of the hacker group.
The messages contained racial epithets, and included a retweet of a message supporting Nazi Germany.
"We're aware that @jack was compromised and investigating what happened," a Twitter spokesperson said.
A
barrage of comments fired off on the platform questioned why the
Twitter o-founder didn't secure his account with two-factor
authentication, and how disturbing a sign it was that the service wasn't
to keep its own chief safe on the platform.
"If you can't protect Jack, you can't protect... jack," one Twitter user quipped.
The
news comes with Dorsey and Twitter moving aggressively to clean up
offensive and inappropriate content as part of a focus on "safety."
"This might be the only way to get rid of racist tweets on this platform," a Twitter user commented.
Twitter
recently announced they would meet with Manchester United
representatives regarding calls for more to be done in preventing racist
abuse of footballers on social media platforms.
British-based
security consultant Graham Cluley said the incident highlighted the
importance of two-factor authentication, where a user must confirm the
account via an external service.
"Everyone
should ensure they have 2FA enabled, use unique password, and double
check what apps they've linked to their accounts," Cluley tweeted.
"Hard to say at moment how he was compromised, but one of those reasons most likely."
Cybersecurity
researcher Kevin Beaumont said the account appeared to have been
hijacked "via a third party called Cloudhopper, which Twitter acquired
about 10 years ago and had access to his account."
Cloudhopper enables users to send tweets on their phones via SMS.
The
incident raised fresh concerns about how social media users -- even
prominent ones -- can have their accounts compromised and used for
misinformation, a point highlighted by Canadian member of parliament
Michelle Rempel Garner.
"Between
bots, trolls and abuse, I've been skeptical about @Twitter as a viable
platform for some time now," Rempel Garner wrote.
"But
the fact it took the platform's owner (@jack) about 30 min to get his
hacked account under control is deeply problematic, and makes me worry
as an elected official."
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