Twitter accounts of some high-profile verified users have been hacked in a bitcoin scam. The official accounts of Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and many other verified users accounts were hacked. All the accounts have sent a tweet which tries to ask people to donate money in Bitcoin.
Major US Twitter accounts hacked in Bitcoin scam
However, Twitter has blocked access to all these verified users accounts and are investigating the matter. All the tweets which were sent are similar from all the accounts which are hacked. All the tweets are asking people to donate Bitcoins and promises to return the double amount.
Twitter has removed all such tweets from the accounts. One of the tweets from Bill Gates post says,
“Everyone is asking me to give back. You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.”
The same message was posted from other accounts also. It says the double return offer will last for 30 minutes.
All of the tweets which are shared Bitcoin says it belongs to an organisation called CryptoForHealth. According to the reports, the web address where the tweets redirected users to was from cyber-attacks. And the email address was ‘[email protected]’ with a profile name Anthony Elias. There was an Instagram profile with cryptoforhealth whose profile reads “It was us”.
All the high-profile users whose Twitter accounts were hacked are:
- US President Barack Obama
- the rapper Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian
- Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos
- Tesla CEO Elon Musk
- media tycoon Mike Bloomberg
- Uber
- Apple
Later, the Biden Campaign said,
Twitter had “locked down the account within a few minutes of the breach and removed the related tweet”.
A spokesman for Bill Gates said,
“This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing.”
However, Twitter responded that it is investigating the matter and will fix it. The first step twitter took they blocked the access to all the verified accounts globally. Later, they revealed that most of the accounts are restored, and some of the accounts are still locked.
We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 15, 2020
According to the reports, a Twitter insider is responsible for the hack. A source said, “We used a rep that literally done all the work for us.” Other sources also said that the insider was paid for all this.
The attack aimed to make more money in a short period of time.
This scam of “Double your Bitcoin” is on Twitter for years, but this is something new with the actual accounts of public figures hacked on a big scale.
However, so many users have been agreed, and the same says the problem is with Twitter itself.