SEC account hack amplifies concerns over security at Elon Musk’s X

The seal of the US Securities and Exchange Commission at SEC headquarters, in Washington. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, that a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, announcing that the securities regulator had approved the trading of exchange-traded funds holding bitcoin was fake, and that the agency’s account had been ‘compromised’. — AP

The US Securities and Exchange Commission said its account on social network X was “compromised”, leading to a spike in the price of Bitcoin and raising fresh questions about X’s reliability as a source of information and the strength of its security practices.

The incident, one of the most consequential breaches in years on the platform formerly known as Twitter, began with a post on the SEC’s official verified account, which inaccurately shared that the regulator had approved spot-Bitcoin exchange-traded funds – a decision that had been anticipated for later this week.