The US financial regulator has confirmed a key security procedure on its X account had been suspended for six months when hackers made a fake post about Bitcoin in January.

The cryptocurrency surged in value before the post was deleted.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) did not have multi-factor authentication (MFA) in place when hackers gained access to the account.

Cyber-security experts say it should be a wake-up call for other agencies.

"While the SEC's X account hack is a minor security incident, all governmental agencies should review the security of their social network accounts," said Ilia Kolochenko from cyber-firm ImmuniWeb.