By Will Feuer
The Securities and Exchange Commission is assessing whether the hack of the agency’s X account that led to an incorrect post about bitcoin warrants additional remedial measures, Chairman Gary Gensler said Friday.
Gensler said the SEC is assessing the impacts of the incident on the agency, investors and the marketplace. SEC staff are working with law enforcement and federal oversight entities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, amongst others, to investigate the hack.
Gensler said an unauthorized party gained access to the agency’s X account on Tuesday shortly after 4 p.m. ET by obtaining control over the phone number associated with the account.
In addition to one post erroneously saying the Commission had approved spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, the hacker also posted “$BTC,” Gensler said. Using the SEC’s account, the unauthorized party also liked two posts by non-SEC accounts.
Gensler said there is no evidence that the unauthorized party gained access to SEC systems, data, devices or other social media accounts. He said staff believe the unauthorized access to the account was terminated between 4:40 p.m. ET and 5:30 p.m. ET.
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