According to the Safety Team of the X platform, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Twitter account was hacked.
The Twitter (X) account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was hacked by an anonymous person, the social media platform’s Safety Team verified following an initial probe.
The Bitcoin ETF announcement, which originated from the SEC X Account, caused chaos in the cryptocurrency ecosystem earlier when it was subsequently revealed to be an unapproved post.
Hacking of US SEC X Account
An unexpected development occurred when the SEC X handle tweeted that the ETFs were approved, ahead of the anticipated approval of the spot Bitcoin ETF.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) unexpectedly rose, but it quickly dropped after Chair Gary Gensler said that the message was not approved and that the account had been hacked.
This also led to rumors that the SEC Chair was attributing the entire incident to hacking and that it was the consequence of an early message from a Commission staff member.
More significantly, the X platform attested to the fact that the SEC account did not have two-factor authentication turned on at the time it was compromised. Regarding the event, the Safety Team of X platform issued the following formal statement:
“We can confirm that the account SEC 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.”
The Safety Team clarified that the breach was caused by an unknown person gaining control of a phone number linked to the SEC account via a third party. In a statement, the organization announced it would work with law authorities to investigate the hack.
Request for Probe
Widespread criticism was leveled at the SEC X account hacking because illicit conversations could result in unethical and deceptive actions. In one instance, the pumping and dumping of Bitcoin caused the cryptocurrency price to fluctuate greatly while millions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin changed hands.
A number of people, including U.S. Congressmen, are calling for an investigation into the occurrence. According to U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty, the SEC must continue to uphold the same standard of transparency regarding misinformation and market manipulation as it would anticipate from any publicly traded corporation.
Although the US SEC is in charge of upholding accountability among different parties, this market-moving incident—particularly about the crucial approval of the Bitcoin ETF—raises concerns about the standards of the current SEC administration, which has been harshly critical of the cryptocurrency industry.