WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (Reuters) – The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on Wednesday sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking a briefing on a fake post on the SEC’s X social media account a day earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. securities regulator said someone briefly accessed its X, formerly called Twitter, account on Tuesday and posted a fake message<\/u><\/a> saying it had approved exchange traded funds (ETF) for bitcoin, a move eagerly awaited by the crypto industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SEC\u00a0eventually on Wednesday<\/u><\/a>\u00a0approved the first U.S.-listed ETFs to track bitcoin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “To better understand how this breach occurred and how the SEC will ensure it cannot happen again, please provide a briefing to Committee staff no later than January 17, 2024,” the panel said in its letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n X said on Tuesday that the SEC’s account was compromised and did not have two-factor authentication enabled at that time. The social media site also said the hack was not due to any breach of X’s systems, citing a preliminary investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This failure is unacceptable, and it is disturbing that your agency could not even meet the standard you require of private industry,” the letter on Wednesday added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The unauthorized post said the SEC had granted approval for bitcoin ETFs on all registered national securities exchanges and included a picture purporting to quote Gensler. The price of bitcoin rose after the post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n U.S. authorities including the Federal Bureau of Investigation were probing the fake post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SEC quickly disavowed and deleted the post<\/u><\/a> and X later said the account was compromised because of an “unidentified individual” obtaining control of a phone number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n