Twitter is working to unlock accounts it locked 'proactively' after hack
The company says hackers didn’t access users’ passwords
Twitter says it’s working to unlock the accounts it locked “proactively” as a result of the massive hack that affected some of the company’s highest profile users, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Elon Musk.
Since the hack, which the company blamed on a “social engineering attack,” a number of users have complained of losing access to their accounts. In a series of tweets Thursday, the company clarified that it had temporarily blocked the ability for users to reset passwords, and that its had “proactively” locked any account that had its password reset in the last 30 days.
Out of an abundance of caution, and as part of our incident response yesterday to protect people’s security, we took the step to lock any accounts that had attempted to change the account’s password during the past 30 days.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020
“If your account was locked, this does not necessarily mean we have evidence that the account was compromised or accessed,” the company wrote. “So far, we believe only a small subset of these locked accounts were compromised, but are still investigating and will inform those who were affected.” The company said it had “no evidence that attackers accessed passwords.”
Out of an abundance of caution, and as part of our incident response yesterday to protect people’s security, we took the step to lock any accounts that had attempted to change the account’s password during the past 30 days.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020
Twitter didn’t say how many accounts were affected by these measures, or provide instructions on how affected users could regain access. “We're working to help people regain access to their accounts ASAP if they were proactively locked,” Twitter said. “This may take additional time since we’re taking extra steps to confirm that we’re granting access to the rightful owner.”
