The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday that multi-factor authentication on its X account had been disabled in the run-up to a false post earlier this month before spot bitcoin ETFs had been formally approved.  

"While multi-factor authentication (MFA) had previously been enabled on the @SECGov X account, it was disabled by X Support, at the staff’s request, in July 2023 due to issues accessing the account," the SEC said in a statement on Monday. "Once access was reestablished, MFA remained disabled until staff reenabled it after the account was compromised on January 9." 

MFA is enabled now for all SEC social media accounts that offer it, the agency's spokesperson added. 

X confirmed in a post on Jan. 9 that the SEC's X account was compromised, as …