A high profile number of Twitter the accounts were simultaneously hacked Wednesday by attackers who used the accounts - some with millions of followers - to spread a cryptocurrency scam.
@bitcoin, @ripple, @coindesk, @coinbase and @binance were among the hacked accounts with the same message: "We have partnered with CryptoForHealth and are returning 5000 BTC to the community", followed by a link to a website, which we are not connecting to.
The scammer's website was quickly disconnected. Kristaps Ronka, CEO of Namesilo, the domain registrar used by scammers, told ProWellTech that the company has suspended the domain "on the first report" it has received.
Twitter acknowledged the situation at 2:45 am on Wednesday afternoon, referring to it as a "security incident".
We are aware of a security incident that has had an impact on Twitter accounts. We are studying and taking measures to solve it. We will all update shortly.
- Twitter support (@TwitterSupport) July 15, 2020
Some of the accounts quickly returned under the control of their owners and the tweets were quickly deleted, although at the time of writing both, Binance and Bitcoin still had a tweet promoting the scam. Even @apple has been hacked into his account to push the same scam, as has Amazon co-founder @jeffbezos and @billgates, whose account has also been briefly hacked with the same message, although the tweet was quickly deleted .
Many other high profile accounts were quickly hijacked, including @elonmusk. The tweet published on the account of the founder of Tesla and SpaceX simply directed users to send bitcoins to a specific address on the pretext that "they will double any payment", a known technique of cryptocurrency scam. Musk's account appeared to be compromised for some time after the initial message, with follow-up posts stating that followers were sending money to the suspicious address.
Numerous prominent democratic political figures have also been raped in the context of the cryptocurrency scam, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Wiz Khalifa's account has also been compromised, as has the Twitter account of the famous YouTuber MrBeast, who frequently publishes giveaways, making his re-posting of the bitcoin address particularly likely to push followers into the scam. The hack also hit legendary investor Warren Buffet, a prominent and severe critic of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. "I have no cryptocurrency and I will never do it," Buffet told CNBC in February.
These types of scams are common. Fraudsters detect high profile Twitter accounts using violated or lost passwords and post messages that encourage users to publish their cryptocurrency funds to a specific address under the pretext that they will double their "investment". In fact, it's a simple theft, but it's a scam that works. At the time of writing, the blockchain address used on the scam site had already raised 2.8 bitcoins - around $ 25,700 in today's currency - and is going up by the minute.
A Binance spokesman told ProWellTech: "The security team is actively studying the situation of this coordinated attack on the cryptocurrency industry." Several other companies affected by the account hacks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It is not known immediately how account hacks occurred. Security researchers, however, found that the attackers had completely taken control of the victims' accounts and also changed the email address associated with the account to make it more difficult for the real user to recover access.
Fraudsters often respond to high-profile accounts, such as celebrities and public figures, to hijack the conversation and deceive unsuspecting victims. Twitter usually closes these accounts fairly quickly.
A Twitter spokesman, once reached, said the company was "looking into" the matter, but did not immediately comment.
