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Twitter has announced that a long outage on its platform was not caused by a security breach or a hack. They are still investigating the cause, the site noted. This update was shared nearly an hour after the Twitter platform went down. The platform was hacked in July, but this current issue does not appear to be related to another hack, the service shared. The cause of the issue is not yet known.
Here’s what you need to know.
Twitter Has Said That a Security Breach or Hack Didn’t Cause the Platform To Go Down
Twitter Status
Although Twitter is still investigating the cause of the outage, the site has made clear that the service disruption was not caused by a hack or any type of security breach, according to the evidence they currently have.
On the site’s Status Update Page, they noted:
[Investigating] We have no evidence this outage is caused by a security breach or hack. We’re currently investigating internal root causes and will share more soon.
The exact cause of the outage isn’t yet known, but Twitter said they are working to fix the issue as quickly as possible.
On their API Status Page, Twitter noted an irregularity with Twitter APIs.
Twitter API Status
They wrote: “Investigating Irregularity with Twitter APIs… We are continuing to monitor as our teams investigate. More updates to come.”
Down Detector noted a spike in issues shortly after 6 p.m. Eastern. Nearly an hour later and the issues continue to be reported.
Down Detector
Twitter Was Hacked in July
Twitter likely made this announcement early because the platform was hacked in July. More than $100,000 was sent to a Bitcoin scam that hacked Twitter accounts belonging to people and organizations like Apple, Mike Bloomberg, Elon Musk, Joe Biden, and more. The hacks started with mostly crypto-focused Twitter accounts and then moved beyond that. In total, about 130 accounts were compromised after they directed victims to send Bitcoins to a scam accounting, promising double payments in return. A total of 426 transfers were made.
Mason Sheppard and Nima Fazeli were charged in the July hack. Graham Ivan Clark, 17, was arrested on July 31 and 30 felony charges were filed against him.
Sheppard was charged with “conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the intentional access of a protected computer.” Fazeli, 22, was charged with “aiding and abetting the intentional access of a protected computer.”Sheppard faced a maximum penalty of 45 years imprisonment, and Fazeli faced a maximum penalty of five years.
Sheppard’s affidavit indicated that he had “advertised the sale of illicit access to any Twitter account” on a forum called OGUsers.com, charging $2,500 to $3,000.
Twitter Had an Internal Configuration Issue in 2019
This isn’t the first outage Twitter has had in the last year or so. Back in July 2019 Twitter went down for nearly an hour. They noted at the time that the problem was caused by an internal configuration change. In February 2020 when Twitter was briefly down, Twitter Support said it was due to a “partial service disruption.”
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