Source: BBC

Twitter has confirmed hackers made use of tools that were supposed to have only been available to its own staff to carry off Wednesday’s hack attack.

Twitter also revealed the perpetrators had downloaded data from up to eight of the accounts involved.

In total, Twitter said 130 accounts had been targeted, of which the hackers had managed to reset the passwords of 45, giving them control.

Twitter said the attackers had targeted certain Twitter employees through a “Social engineering scheme”.

Once inside Twitter’s internal systems, the hackers were not able to see users’ previous passwords but could access personal information including email addresses and phone numbers as these are visible to staff using internal support tools.

Twitter scrambled to contain the unprecedented attack, temporarily preventing all verified users – those with a blue tick on their accounts – from tweeting.

The New York Times confirmed that was how Mr. Trump’s account escaped the attack, citing an anonymous White House official and a separate Twitter employee.

The researchers have also linked at least one Twitter account to the hack, which has now been suspended.

Full Story @ BBC