The hijacking of more than 130 high-profile Twitter accounts last week is extraordinary in at least one respect: that it didn’t happen sooner.
As online companies have improved their security protections to prevent account hijacking, attackers have looked for new ways to overcome those barriers. Many have turned to social engineering to gain an inside path, and Twitter says this is how attackers last week managed to hijack the accounts of multiple business executives, politicians and celebrities, including former Vice President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Microsoft’s Bill Gates.
