Twitter Inc said late on Thursday that hackers targeted about 130 accounts during the cyber attack this week, an incident in which profiles of many prominent personalities and organizations were compromised.
Twitter said that the hackers were able to gain control of a small number of accounts and send tweets from them.
The company added that it was continuing to assess whether hackers were able to access private data of the targeted accounts.
Accounts of celebrities and political figures including Joe Biden, Kim Kardashian, Barack Obama and Elon Musk were hacked during the cyber attack on Wednesday.
Twitter reiterated that it was working with impacted account owners.
The FBI’s San Francisco division is leading an inquiry into the Twitter hacking, it said in a statement on Thursday, as more Washington lawmakers called for an accounting of how it happened.
The high-profile accounts that were hacked also included rapper Kanye West, Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, investor Warren Buffett, Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates, and the corporate accounts for Uber Technologies Inc and Apple Inc.
Hackers who targeted some of Twitter’s top users to reap bitcoin worth $120,000 have likely left digital footprints that could offer clues for law enforcement agencies investigating the attack, three blockchain analysis companies told Reuters.
In an unprecedented spree, the unidentified attackers on Wednesday hijacked the accounts of politicians, celebrities and billionaires, using them to solicit bitcoin transfers to a string of digital wallets.
A digital wallet used to consolidate the bitcoin has previously been linked with crypto firms including merchant service providers, U.S. blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis told Reuters – a clue that could aid investigators.
“They have interacted with service providers that have know-your-customer processes, and law enforcement can work with those service providers to find out who can be behind those accounts,” spokeswoman Maddie Kennedy said, declining to give further details.
