For many years, the cryptocurrency industry has waited with bated breath for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to finally approve Bitcoin ETFs.
This was not before a hacker had the first laugh.
Tuesday afternoon, a day prior, the official X account of the SEC was hacked, and a false announcement was released, declaring the approval of Bitcoin ETFs.
In the brief period before this false tweet would be deleted and debunked by the SEC, the cryptocurrency industry celebrated this momentous decision.
The markets even reflected this excitement, as Bitcoin spiked to a price of $48,000 following the release of the fraudulent tweet.
The excitement was quickly snuffed when the post was taken down and SEC Chair Gary Gensler announced that the announcement had been the result of an unidentified hacker having taken control of the SEC's official X account for a short period.
Following this event, the SEC is currently investigating the incident alongside law enforcement to discover the person or persons behind the hack, and the purpose behind it.
Not to mention the question of how exactly this hacker gained access to the account of an organization that sets the standard, for all intents and purposes, for cybersecurity organizations across the country.
It turns out that the X account did not have two-factor authentication enabled when the hack occurred, as X Safety announced in a tweet Tuesday night.
While the official approval for Bitcoin ETF came only a day after the account compromise, the hack caused a significant level of uproar and will likely not be forgotten for some time.
Considering the influential nature of the SEC within the cybersecurity industry, this bout of misinformation-for whatever purpose-shows the importance for organizations to maintain a strong and robust security posture, especially ahead of global shifts in industry, money, and politics.
This Cyber News was published on www.itsecurityguru.org. Publication date: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 18:43:03 +0000