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Tesla Twitter account, media-relations email hacked [UPDATE]

EV Automaker The Latest To Experience Unauthorized Access

Tesla Model S
Tesla Model S
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UPDATE: A Tesla spokesperson has provided a statement explaining how the hack happened, and federal authorities have started an investigation.

Tesla paid $10,000 last year to a team from Zhejiang University in China for successfully hacking a Model S, and soon after the automaker proclaimed that it was working to make the luxury EV uncrackable. However, similar dedication might have been useful on the company's own social media presence. On April 25 hackers were able to gain access to the business's Twitter account and media relations email.

According to Bloomberg, hackers posted messages on Tesla's Twitter page and responded to an email meant to the company's PR representatives. However, the tweets were removed within an hour of the attack. Autoblog reached out to the automaker for an official comment following the breach on Saturday, but the company has not yet responded.

Tesla is hardly the first automaker to experience a Twitter hack, though. In 2013, both Jeep and Fisker had their accounts taken over, as well.
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Tesla Statement

This case is under investigation, here's what we know: Posing as a Tesla employee, somebody called AT&T customer support and had them forward calls to an illegitimate phone number. The impostor then contacted the domain registrar company that hosts teslamotors.com, Network Solutions. Using the forwarded number, the imposter added a bogus email address to the Tesla domain admin account. The impostor then reset the password of the domain admin account, routed most of the website traffic to a spoof website and temporarily gained access to Tesla's and Elon's Twitter accounts.

Some customers may have noticed temporary changes to www.teslamotors.com on their browsers or experienced difficulty when using our mobile app to access Model S. Both were due to teslamotors.com being re-routed.

Our corporate network, cars and customer database remained secure throughout the incident. We have restored everything back to normal. We are working with AT&T, Network Solutions, and federal authorities to further investigate and take all necessary actions to make sure this never happens again.

Tesla Model S Information

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