<p>Shares of Twitter Inc dropped more than 4% in pre-market trading on Thursday, a day after hackers gained access to the social media company's internal systems to hijack accounts of several politicians, billionaires, celebrities and companies.</p>.<p>Hackers infiltrated the twitter handles of US presidential candidate Joe Biden, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, former US President Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk to solicit digital currency - raising major concerns about security on the widely-used platform.</p>.<p>The hack "certainly doesn't help," Joe Wittine, Edgewater Research analyst, told Reuters in an email. It will pose more of a "reputational risk", versus "material near-term risk to advertising revenues."</p>.<p>Twitter said hackers targeted employees with access to its internal systems and "used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf."</p>.<p>In an extraordinary step, Twitter temporarily prevented many verified accounts from publishing messages as it investigated the breach.</p>.<p>Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said in a tweet on Wednesday that it was a "tough day" for everyone at Twitter and pledged to share "everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened."</p>.<p>Other high profile accounts that were hacked included rapper Kanye West, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, investor Warren Buffett, Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates, and the corporate accounts for Uber and Apple Inc. Several accounts of cryptocurrency-focused organizations were also hijacked.</p>.<p>Publicly available blockchain records show that the apparent scammers received more than $100,000 worth of cryptocurrency. (Reporting by Ayanti Bera, Aakash </p>
<p>Shares of Twitter Inc dropped more than 4% in pre-market trading on Thursday, a day after hackers gained access to the social media company's internal systems to hijack accounts of several politicians, billionaires, celebrities and companies.</p>.<p>Hackers infiltrated the twitter handles of US presidential candidate Joe Biden, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, former US President Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk to solicit digital currency - raising major concerns about security on the widely-used platform.</p>.<p>The hack "certainly doesn't help," Joe Wittine, Edgewater Research analyst, told Reuters in an email. It will pose more of a "reputational risk", versus "material near-term risk to advertising revenues."</p>.<p>Twitter said hackers targeted employees with access to its internal systems and "used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf."</p>.<p>In an extraordinary step, Twitter temporarily prevented many verified accounts from publishing messages as it investigated the breach.</p>.<p>Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said in a tweet on Wednesday that it was a "tough day" for everyone at Twitter and pledged to share "everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened."</p>.<p>Other high profile accounts that were hacked included rapper Kanye West, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, investor Warren Buffett, Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates, and the corporate accounts for Uber and Apple Inc. Several accounts of cryptocurrency-focused organizations were also hijacked.</p>.<p>Publicly available blockchain records show that the apparent scammers received more than $100,000 worth of cryptocurrency. (Reporting by Ayanti Bera, Aakash </p>