The US senators want a report of Gary Gensler on the violation of X, the deadline is Monday

Two US senators are asking the US Securities and Exchange Commission to report to Congress on the January 9 X account breach.

In a letter to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler the same day, Senators J.D. Vance and Tom Tillis described the case as a “serious threat” to the commission's internal cybersecurity procedures.

It also said it “goes against the commission's triple mission of protecting investors, maintaining a fair, orderly and efficient market and facilitating capital formation.”

Concerned about the recent hack — which they said has caused “widespread confusion” — the two senators called on the SEC to report on the incident, citing recently passed legislation on cybersecurity disclosures.

In the January 9 letter, this would make the proposed deadline January 15.

The incident occurred on January 9, when the SEC's X account shared a fake tweet referring to Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) approved in the United States.

However, the excitement across the crypto community was short-lived after Gensler revealed that the SEC's X account had been hacked and used to send unauthorized tweets.

The @SECGov Twitter account was hacked, and an unauthorized tweet was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and marketing of spot bitcoin trading products.

— Gary Gensler (@GaryGensler) January 9, 2024

As investors and markets react to the uncertainty, many have pointed to the SEC's lack of preparedness to prevent cyberattacks and online threats. An internal investigation from X found that the account was not using two-factor authentication at the time of the breach. X's report reads:

“Based on our investigation, the compromise was not caused by any breach of X's system, but by a third-party control of the phone number associated with the @SECGov account by an unidentified individual. We can also confirm that the account did not have two-factor authentication when the account was compromised.

In the letter from Senator Vance and Senator Tillis, Gensler was asked to share details about the SEC's timelines for the Bitcoin ETFs decision and his plans to fix the issues related to the fake endorsement tweet.

As seen above, the senators asked Gensler to provide a cybersecurity disclosure “within four business days of the breach that describes the full impact on their business.” If the SEC's investigations confirm X's investigations, the SEC is required to submit a full report to Congress within four days.

Just as the SEC demands accountability from public companies if they make such a big market-matching mistake, Congress needs answers to what happened now. This is unacceptable. https://t.co/tWtLqHtqpu

— Senator Bill Hagerty (@SenatorHagerty) January 9, 2024

Hagerty echoed the sentiments of his fellow congressmen in calling for a full disclosure of the incident.

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