Twitter accounts of high profile individuals and companies were hacked in a freakish cyberattack where these accounts were used to promote a bitcoin scam.
All these accounts carried a similar message that said: “I am giving back to my community due to Covid-19! All Bitcoin sent to my address below will be sent back doubled. If you send $1,000 I will send back $2,000!” followed by bitcoin wallet address. “Only doing this for the next 30 minutes! Enjoy.”, the message carried.
Elon Musk, Apple, Warren Buffet, Barack Obama, Mike Bloomber, Wiz Khalifa, Jeff Bezos, Kanye West and Joe Biden are some of the accounts that were compromised.
Some people fell for the scam and had sent money to the bitcoin address. It is estimated that, the scammers have so far amassed nearly $120,000. It seems as if the account owner is indeed sending money back out as the daily final balance has fluctuated up and down throughout the afternoon.
Following this, Twitter tweeted that they are aware of the incident and taking steps to fix it.
Twitter halted the ability of some accounts to post tweets. “You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address the incident,” Twitter Support tweeted.