The official Twitter accounts of Apple, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others were hijacked on Wednesday by scammers trying to trick people into sending cryptocurrency bitcoins, in a massive hack on the social media platform.
The list of simultaneously seized accounts grew rapidly to include Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Uber, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, bitcoin companies, and many others.
The posts, which were largely removed, bid farewell to the variety of high-profile accounts that told people they had 30 minutes to send $ 1,000 in bitcoins to get double back.
“This is a scam, DO NOT participate!” Co-founder of the Gemini crypto exchange Cameron Winklevoss warned in a tweet from his official Twitter account.
“This is the same attack / takeover that other major crypto twitter accounts are experiencing. Be attentive!”
Comments and posts on Twitter indicated that thousands of dollars in bitcoins may have been sent to the scammers’ digital account.
Twitter told AFP that it was investigating the situation and would provide a statement.
“Given the accounts that were most recently hacked (Apple, Uber, Gates, Musk, etc.), I now lean towards this as an internal compromise of a Twitter system, not an API attack by a social aggregation service,” he said. bitcoin authority and Author Andreas Antonopoulos said in a tweet from his account @aantonop.
A version of the scam invited people to click on a link where they would be exploited.
“All major Twitter crypto accounts have been compromised,” Winklevoss warned in a tweet.
Among the hacked accounts was @gemini used by the crypto exchange, according to his twin brother and co-founder Tyler Winklevoss.
“@ Gemini’s Twitter account, along with other crypto Twitter accounts, has been hacked,” Tyler Winklevoss said in a tweet.
Twitter confirms “security incident” involving hacked accounts
Twitter said it is working to fix a “security incident” after scammers hijacked high-profile accounts on Wednesday to trick people without money.
“We are aware of a security incident affecting Twitter accounts,” the messaging platform said in a tweet.
“We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly. “
The official Twitter accounts of Apple, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos posted messages trying to convince people to send bitcoin cryptocurrencies in a massive scam.
Verified accounts can’t tweet
Twitter, apparently in an effort to minimize the damage caused by hacking, has blocked tweeting from many verified accounts, which is probably for the best.
[AFP]
.
