Headquarters of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
Social media X said late Tuesday it has completed a preliminary probe into the compromised account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that displayed a false post claiming the SEC had approved bitcoin ETFs for trading.
“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 associated with the @SECGov
account through a third party,” said X in a post on Wednesday, confirming that the SEC’s account was compromised.
“We can also confirm that the account did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time the account was compromised,” said X in the post.
Bitcoin prices briefly shot up following the unauthorized post, but soon fell below $46,000 after the SEC clarified that it had not yet approved the bitcoin ETF.
“The SEC’s @SECGov X/Twitter account has been compromised. The unauthorized tweet regarding bitcoin ETFs was not made by the SEC or its staff,” an SEC spokesperson told CNBC.
“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 associated with the @SECGov account through a third party,” X said.
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