What we know about how Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's account was hacked, and the group called 'Chuckling Squad' who is claiming responsibility
The hack of @jack lasted for under 30 minutes on Friday afternoon.
Starting at 3:44 PM EST, Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey's official account, @jack, began tweeting out offensive messages and retweeting tweets associated with the "Chuckling Squad," a group of hackers that targeted YouTubers over the past two weeks.
In just 20 minutes, before Twitter's official communications account confirmed the hack, Dorsey's account tweeted racial slurs, anti-Semitic tweets, and more offensive content before all the tweets and retweets were eventually removed.
The group also shared a link to a Discord server it has commandeered since the last high-profile account hack it claimed to be behind, but Discord deleted the associated server quickly after Dorsey's account tweeted about it.
The hacking group that identified itself as taking over Dorsey's account has previously targeted YouTubers, including James Charles.
Before claiming ownership over Dorsey's account hack, the "Chuckling Squad," as it identifies itself, hacked famous YouTubers. James Charles, Shane Dawson, King Bach, Etika, and Amanda Cerny were all hacked in the past two weeks.
Charles, the most recent hack, alleged in a tweet threatening legal action that AT&T was to blame for the "Chuckling Squad" gaining access to his account.
Twitter has yet to confirm who hacked Dorsey's account or how, but while it was hacked, Dorsey's account tweeted the link to the same Discord server whose admin posted screenshots from inside deceased YouTuber Etika's Google Mail account.
Tweets sent while Dorsey's account was hacked seemingly used the service "Cloudhopper," a third-party service.
Dorsey has sent tweets before using Cloudhopper, an app Twitter acquired in 2010 that uses SMS, the most widely used type of text messaging. Cloudhopper is no longer available to the public for use, though Dorsey tweeted from Cloudhopper before his interview with Joe Rogan in February.
When the "Chuckling Squad" targeted YouTubers, it was rumored that the hackers were calling AT&T, pretending to be their targets, and requesting a SIM card swap, which would give them access to their target's text messaging.
Some were quick to joke and speculate that Dorsey and members of his team may be at the Burning Man music festival.
To be clear, there is zero evidence Jack Dorsey has ever attended Burning Man or is currently at the desert-based gathering. But in the wake of his account's hacking, people were quick to joke and speculate that Dorsey or members of his security team were at Burning Man, with the joke being that it would be the definition of an inopportune place to handle such a time-sensitive situation.
Previously, Dorsey has tweeted how much he enjoys San Francisco when Burning Man attendees are gone, leaving the city slightly less crowded. On August 31, 2010, he tweeted "Definitely one of my favorite weeks in SF. All the Burning Man folks are emptying out of the city, and it's getting ever warmer."
Just imagine the head of Twitter's security team right now, on seven different kinds of mushrooms, nude, in a giant bamboo steampunk rocketship called the Love Temple, ignoring his push notifications
— Tom Gara (@tomgara) August 30, 2019Twitter says Dorsey's account is now secure.
At 5:22 PM ET on Friday, Twitter's communications team tweeted out that Dorsey's account was secure, and that Twitter's investigation into the matter had not surfaced any evidence to suggest Twitter's systems were compromised.
The account is now secure, and there is no indication that Twitter's systems have been compromised.
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) August 30, 2019
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