Twitter hackers accessed messages of far-right leader Geert Wilders

Twitter says an elected official within the Netherlands was amongst 36 account holders whose direct message inboxes have been accessed in final week’s high-profile hack.

Geert Wilders, from the right-wing Freedom Celebration (PVV) mentioned on Thursday that he was knowledgeable that his account had been compromised by Twitter.

Scammers had posted tweets on his account and despatched false direct messages, or DMs, in his title.

World leaders, celebrities, and tech moguls have been amongst 130 accounts that have been focused in a high-profile rip-off final week.

The hack appeared designed to lure Twitter followers into sending cash to an nameless Bitcoin account.

Twitter revealed extra particulars of the intrusion on Wednesday after finishing a assessment of the hacked accounts.

“So far, we have now no indication that another former or present elected official had their DMs accessed,” the corporate mentioned in a statement.

“We’re actively engaged on speaking immediately with the account-holders that have been impacted.”

Attackers despatched tweets from 45 of the focused accounts, whereas eight accounts – none of which have been ‘verified’ – had an archive of “Your Twitter Knowledge” downloaded.

The corporate has beforehand mentioned the incident was a “coordinated social engineering assault” that focused some of its staff with entry to inner programs and instruments.

Wilders described the hack as “completely unacceptable in some ways” and signalled his return to the platform on July 17 with a hashtag #NoMoreHack.

“We’re acutely conscious of our tasks to the individuals who use our service and to society extra usually,” Twitter mentioned in a weblog publish.

“We’re embarrassed, we’re dissatisfied, and greater than something, we’re sorry. We all know that we should work to regain your belief, and we are going to assist all efforts to deliver the perpetrators to justice.”

We hope that our openness and transparency all through this course of, and the steps and work we are going to take to safeguard in opposition to different assaults sooner or later, would be the begin of making this proper.

An investigation into the hack is ongoing.

Click on on the video participant above to observe Seana Davis’ report in #TheCube.