Twitter says hackers accessed private messages of 36 accounts

San Francisco

Hackers accessed the private direct messages of 36 accounts including that of an "elected official" in the Netherlands, in a wide-scale hacking last week, Twitter said late Wednesday. "To date, we have no indication that any other former or current elected official had their DMs [direct messages] accessed," the company tweeted.

In total 130 accounts were hacked, and attackers were able to view personal information including email addresses and phone numbers, the company announced on Saturday. The hackers targeted influential figures such as former president Barack Obama, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Tesla founder Elon Musk, Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden, rapper Kanye West, and Amazon chief Jeff Bezos posting a message for a Bitcoin scam last Wednesday.

They were able to post from 45 of the accounts and initiate a password reset. Twitter has not released any information on who or where the hack came from and said it is continuing to investigate. A US Senate Committee is demanding Twitter brief US Congress on the hack and an FBI probe is under way.