The Twitter accounts of famous American billionaires and prominent figures in the United States were hacked by hackers on Wednesday, apparently to try a bitcoin scam. Given the large number of impact accounts attacked, it could be the largest security incident in the history of Twitter, writes CNN.
Those with hacked Twitter accounts include billionaires Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Michael Bloomberg, Apple, politicians Joe Biden and Barack Obama, as well as showbiz celebrities such as Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.
The hackers posted messages on the official accounts of these personalities through which, apparently, the owners asked the fans to make donations via a bitcoin address, promising them that they would double the amount sent to them.
“Everyone asks me to give it back and now is the time” is the message posted by hackers on Bill Gates’ account, a message in which the billionaire promises to double all payments in 30 minutes to an address indicated for bitcoin.
Similarly, Barack Obama “announces” that he wants to make donations to the community affected by the pandemic and promises those who send him bitcoin that he will double the amount in half an hour.
Twitter informed the special technical support account that it knows about the security incident, conducts investigations and takes measures to remedy the situation. Nearly an hour after the attack began, Twitter had blocked all verified personal accounts so that they could no longer generate messages.
The first bitcoin address indicated in these fake tweets became active on Wednesday, and in a few hours it already had the equivalent of over $ 100,000 through thousands of transactions, a cryptocurrency specialist, Tim Cotten, told CNN. Some of the amounts were immediately transferred to other bitcoin addresses.
Cryptocurrency fraud has also attracted the attention of the FBI, which has called on the public to be careful not to heed the urge to send money or virtual currencies.
Such an attack is worrying not only because of the possible financial scam, but also because world leaders often use the Twitter network to announce major political decisions. It is known that President Donald Trump is one of the “fans” of Twitter posts. A false message attributed to these leaders could have devastating consequences.
CNN recalls that last year the president of the Twitter Company himself had a broken account, asking himself if there is any account of the platform that is really safe from such cyber-attacks.
