Hackers appear to target Twitter accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, others in digital currency scam
Hackers appear to target Twitter accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, others in digital currency scam
Elon Musk looks on as US President Donald Trump attends SpaceX launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 27, 2020.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images
A tweet sent by Elon Musk’s account on Wednesday asked for Bitcoin and promised to “double all payments” sent to an address.
It was the beginning of a wave of takeovers of high-profile Twitter accounts, including Apple, Uber, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett, and several cryptocurrency-related companies. Former president Barack Obama’s account also tweeted about bitcoin late Wednesday afternoon. At one point, the Obama account was Twitter’s most famous user.
Twitter’s stock is down 4% after hours as the company struggles to get the hack under control and has so far provided zero information about it.
One wallet linked to in the tweets had apparently received over 11 bitcoin, worth over $100,000 at the current exchange rate, according to Blockchain.com .
The Musk tweet was deleted minutes after it was sent, before a second tweet asking for bitcoin was posted from the same account and deleted again. In total, Musk’s account sent three bitcoin tweets from a Twitter web account and one reply to Bill Gates. The bitcoin-related tweet was Apple’s first ever tweet, although the account had placed ads in the past.
Apple’s Twitter account was hacked.
Jeff Bezos’ Twitter account was hacked.
Mike Bloomberg’s Twitter account was hacked.
Warren Buffet’s Twitter account was hacked.
Barack Obama’s Twitter account was hacked.
Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder of cryptocurrency market Gemini, offered an explanation in a tweet: “ALL MAJOR CRYPTO TWITTER ACCOUNTS HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED.” Earlier on Wednesday, several cryptocurrency accounts simultaneously linked to a phishing site called CryptoForHealth.
In the past, one popular cryptocurrency scam on Twitter involved attackers changing their display name and avatar to match Elon Musk, then they would reply to his tweets pretending to be him asking for bitcoin. But on Wednesday, the accounts tweeting about bitcoin were real. One wallet linked to in the tweets had received over 11 bitcoin, worth over $100,000 at the current exchange rate, according to Blockchain.com .
The tweets on Wednesday were sent through a web browser accessing Twitter.com, according to the site.
Tesla didn’t immediately reply to request for comment. Twitter said that it was looking into the issue.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
