Gary Gensler Says FBI and Homeland Security Investigating Hack of SEC’s X Account

The Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Homeland Security are looking into last week’s hack of the regulatory body’s X account.

In a new statement, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler says that the law enforcement agencies are now involved in the investigation of last Tuesday’s hack of the account, which was compromised and used to make a false post about spot market Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) being approved.

According to Gensler, there’s no evidence that the bad actor was able to gain access to the SEC’s systems, data, devices or other social media accounts.

“The unauthorized party made one post at 4:11 pm ET purporting to announce the Commission’s approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, as well as a second post approximately two minutes later that said ‘BTC.’

The unauthorized party subsequently deleted the second post, but not the first. Using the SECGov account, the unauthorized party also liked two posts by non-SEC accounts.”

Gensler says that the exploiter’s access to the X account was terminated about 30 minutes to an hour after they compromised it.

Late last week, US Senators – such as Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon and Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming – wrote a letter to the SEC demanding answers as to how someone could skirt its cybersecurity measures.

According to Gensler, many law enforcement agencies are currently working on the matter.

“Staff are coordinating with appropriate law enforcement and federal oversight entities, including the SEC’s Office of Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, amongst others, in their investigations.

The agency will provide updates on the incident as appropriate.”

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