Multiple high-profile and verified Twitter accounts were hacked on Wednesday by Cybercriminals that used the official accounts to spread a Cryptocurrency scam. The post lures the followers of high-profile accounts to send payment to a BTC Address within 30 minutes and “as payback” they will have the money back double in value – a common cryptocurrency scam scheme.
The official Twitter accounts of the high-profile mogul, including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos were the ones compromised in this attack. It has also been reported that the Twitter account of former US Vice President Joe Biden was also hacked as well as the account of former US President Barack Obama.
Other breached accounts that were included in this widespread cryptocurrency scam are Warren Buffet, Mike Bloomberg, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Floyd Mayweather, Wiz Khalifa, Apple, Uber, CoinDesk, Binance, Bitcoin, and Gemini.
As part of Twitter’s remediation efforts, hacked Twitter accounts that used to promote the Bitcoin scam were restricted from tweeting.
There were several speculations on how the hack was successfully carried away by the Cybercriminals simultaneously on several high-profile Twitter accounts, this includes a Zero-day vulnerability that is used to bypass the site’s authentication.
As per Twitter’s investigation, they have detected that the Cybercriminals behind this attack successfully operate Social Engineering attacks to their employees that have access to their Internal Systems.
Most of the hacked accounts were now restored to the account owner’s possession, and the scam post was already removed. It has been reported. However, that bitcoin address used in the scam was able to generate a vast amount of $100, 000 from various transactions.
Twitter assured that they have taken significant steps to limit access to their Internal Systems and tools while their investigation is still ongoing in this widespread attack.
Blue checkbox – not everything you see is true
What made social engineering successful despite the obvious too good to be true statement? It is the blue checkmark of these profiles. Their reputation in the world made them look like they are telling the truth. People depended too much on indicators from the social media platform. We do hope that this serves as a lesson to everyone. Remember, it is old but gold to say that “If it is too good to be true, then most likely it really is.”
