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Tweets sent from hacked Twitter accounts of several prominent users on the social media app asking for Bitcoin and promising to “double all payments” sent to an address has become one of the biggest scams in social media history.
On Wednesday afternoon, several accounts including those of Apple, Uber, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Kanye West and several cryptocurrency-related companies appeared to have been hacked and sent out the message meant to scam people out of their money.
https://twitter.com/_soriajon/status/1283508112855494656
Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kanye West, Uber, Apple and other high profile accounts were hacked by Bitcoin scammers. pic.twitter.com/9WAtTjFJMj
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 15, 2020
According to Casey Newton of the Verge over $100k has been reportedly stolen so far in the scam.
https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1283508965448413184
https://twitter.com/MalwareTechBlog/status/1283510827975245825
Twitter is currently looking into the issue.
Via Buzzfeed News
A Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the issue was “being looked into.” Tweets promoting the scam continued to persist across various verified accounts on Wednesday afternoon.
We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly.
— Support (@Support) July 15, 2020
Update: It appears that Presidential candidate Joe Biden has also been hacked.
Breaking: Joe Biden’s twitter account has been hacked, promoting a bitcoin scam. pic.twitter.com/g1qA62MnI1
— PM Breaking News (@PMBreakingNews) July 15, 2020
And now Barack Obama as well.
jfc pic.twitter.com/xLUmAuhBzl
— Ryan Mac 🙃 (@RMac18) July 15, 2020