Unknown persons hacked the SEC’s account in X and published a fake about the approval of a bitcoin ETF
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) X-account has been hacked to publish a fake message about the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs for trading.
This was reported by CNBC.
The deleted post stated that the SEC had allegedly authorized the listing of products on all registered exchanges in the United States. The message also contained a quote attributed to the chairman of the commission, Gary Gensler.
Gensler himself denied the authenticity of the post. According to him, the SEC account at X was “compromised.”
The @SECGov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products.
— Gary Gensler (@GaryGensler) January 9, 2024
The SEC did not approve the listing and trading of bitcoin spot exchange products.
Gary Gensler
An “unknown party” gained access to the SEC account.
The SEC found that an “unknown party” had unauthorized access to the X-account for a short period of time. The incident occurred on Tuesday, January 9, just after 23:00 Kyiv time.
The agency said it would work with law enforcement agencies and the government to establish all the circumstances. The SEC did not disclose any other details.
Social network X conducted its own investigation into the incident. The company’s experts found that the compromise was not related to the breach of X.
We can confirm that the account @SECGov was compromised and we have completed a preliminary investigation. Based on our investigation, the compromise was not due to any breach of X’s systems, but rather due to an unidentified individual obtaining control over a phone number.
— Safety (@Safety) January 10, 2024
Most likely, an unidentified person gained control of the phone number associated with the @SECGov account through a third party.
X
Confirm with the company that the account was not using two-factor authentication at the time of the hack.
Bitcoin reacted to the fake news by rising, and then plummeted.
Following the publication of the fake news, the price of bitcoin jumped to $48 thousand. However, after the refutation, the value of the first cryptocurrency immediately fell below $45.5 thousand.
Currently, the price of bitcoin has been adjusted and is holding at $46 thousand.
