Twitter shares tumble after potential Chinese hacking

潛在中國駭客攻擊後推特股價暴跌

User data was compromised in November via malware-infested memes


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Shares in Twitter have fallen by nearly 7 percent after the social media platform announced potential hacking attempts from state-sponsored actors.

Reuters reported this morning (Dec. 18) that Twitter discovered suspicious traffic to the platform’s customer-support forum while investigating a separate hacking incident. The initial bug exposed users’ phone country codes among other account data.

After investigating the origins and background of the hack, Twitter revealed an unusually large number of inquiries to the forum coming from China and Saudi Arabia. The statistics are particularly suspicious given than Twitter has been blocked from the general public in China since 2009.

The social media platform said it currently cannot confirm intent or attribution for certain, but believes it is likely IP addresses involved were attached to state-sponsored hackers. A representative wrote: “we continue to err on the side of full transparency in this area and have updated law enforcement on our findings.”

The news follows a separate report by Trend Micro on Dec. 14 that revealed hackers sent out malicious meme tweets in October that were able to extract desktop files, capture clipboard content and make screen captures from those who downloaded the images. It is unclear whether this incident is related or not.

Beijing’s attempts to hack the networks of public institutions and private enterprises, and engage in cyberwarfare, have become more and more transparent recently. Current evidence suggests Chinese state-sponsored hackers were behind the Marriot Hotel hacking scandal discovered in late November.

Social media is also becoming more and more commonly used as a vessel for state-sponsored hacking. Russian hackers were able to gain access to U.S. Pentagon computers in 2016 via malware-infested links sent out via Twitter.