SEC was hacked after failing to secure their X account, mainstream media attacks X anyway

Mainstream media outlets have been attacking Elon Musk and the social media platform X for a hack on the Security and Exchange Commission's (SEC) X account even though the SEC was at fault. 

On Tuesday, the SEC X account made a post claiming that Bitcoin ETFs were going to be approved and registered for the national securities exchanges went up on the platform. The post was very quickly taken down and the account posted to X, "The @SECGov X account was compromised, and an unauthorized post was posted."

After coverage of the hack went viral online, some corporate media outlets began to attack Musk and X as a platform. 

In Bloomberg's coverage the outlet's headline stated, "SEC Account Hack Amplifies Concerns Over Security at Musk's X." Other corporate outlets such as Reuters, in its coverage, published the headline, SEC account hack renews spotlight on X's security concerns."

However, on Tuesday night at around 10:30 pm, the safety account at X posted to the platform, "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."

The SEC account also "did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time the account was compromised" the post stated. Two-factor authentication is one of the "best practices" recommended by the platform on their account security page which links directly to a setup for the process. 

X users responded to the post from the safety team writing comments such as "The people in charge of 'protecting investors' and 'regulating' Bitcoin can’t even protect their own X account with basic 2FA" and "The SEC can't figure out how to secure their social media accounts, but is in charge of securing our money."

The SEC came after Musk prior to the media storm surrounding the account hack when he purchased Twitter and rebranded it to X. In a litigation release from Oct. 5, 2023, the SEC announced it "filed an application seeking an order directing Elon Musk (“Musk”) to comply with an investigative subpoena calling for his appearance for testimony" which Musk did not comply with. 

Referencing Flatt v. SEC, an administrative agency investigation case from 2010, the SEC application to force Musk to comply with the agency subpoena quoted, "An agency can investigate merely on the suspicion that the law is being violated, or even just because it wants assurance that it is not. So long as the material requested touches a matter under investigation, an administrative subpoena will survive a challenge that the material is not relevant."