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Corporate & celebrity Twitter accounts being hacked by massive Bitcoin scam

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clapclapclap

clapclapclap 9000

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https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/15/21326200/elon-musk-bill-gates-twitter-hack-bitcoin-scam-compromised

The Twitter accounts of major companies and individuals have been compromised in one of the most widespread and confounding hacks the platform has ever seen, all in service of promoting a bitcoin scam that appears to be earning its creator quite a bit of money. We don’t know how it’s happened or even to what extent Twitter’s own systems may have been compromised. The hack is ongoing, with new tweets posting to verified accounts on a regular basis starting shortly after 4PM ET.

It all began when Elon Musk’s Twitter account was seemingly compromised by a hacker intent on using it to run a bitcoin scam. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also had his account seemingly accessed by the same scammer, who posted a similar message with an identical bitcoin wallet address. Both accounts are continuing to post new tweets promoting the scam almost as fast as they are deleted. A spokesperson for Gates tells Recode’s Teddy Schleifer, “We can confirm that this tweet was not sent by Bill Gates. This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing. Twitter is aware and working to restore the account.”

Shortly after the initial wave of tweets from Gates and Musk’s accounts, the accounts of Apple, Uber, former President Barack Obama, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, hip-hop mogul Kanye West, and former New York City mayor and billionaire Mike Bloomberg, among others, were also compromised and began promoting the scam.

It’s unclear how widespread the operation is, but it appears to be affecting numerous major companies and extremely high-profile individuals. That suggests someone, or a group, has either found a severe security loophole in Twitter’s login process or third-party app, or that the perpetrator has somehow gained access to a Twitter employee’s admin privileges.

(snip)

 

Ec_3H2TWkAAcpa6?format=png&name=900x900

Edited by clapclapclap
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Blotto

Blotto 23559

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I kinda applaud whoever is behind this. First, it clowns twitter pretty badly, and fuck twitter. Second, there are no victims here. Anybody that gives Gates, Musk, Apple etc....bitcoin on the assumption they would immediately receive 2x their donated amount is too fucking stupid to bother with money. Those people will lose it all eventually, 100% of the time. This effort just accelerates that process, and I appreciate people that can figure out ways to greatly increase efficiency. 

Edited by Blotto
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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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Thousands of years of religion grifting the common folk.  A hundred years of scratch off lottery tickets aimed at people of color. And we’re shocked somebody took that model to the interwebs?   I’m just surprised it took this long.  

Edited by Lobo
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Eastwood

Eastwood 4394

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Some of the olds will take a victory lap and claim it's proof that us younger folks and Twitter are stupid, but they're the ones that I have to keep telling that they didn't actually win the Australian National Lottery, so please don't give the man who cold called you your bank account number.

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52-80

52-80 19168

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28 minutes ago, Blotto said:

I kinda applaud whoever is behind this. First, it clowns twitter pretty badly, and fuck twitter. Second, there are no victims here. Anybody that gives Gates, Musk, Apple etc....bitcoin on the assumption they would immediately receive 2x their donated amount is too fucking stupid to bother with money. Those people will lose it all eventually, 100% of the time. This effort just accelerates that process, and I appreciate people that can figure out ways to greatly increase efficiency. 

Not a scam.  It's 100% legit?

 

Don't believe me?  Send me $1000 in bitcoin and see $2000 reciprocated in your account

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Blotto

Blotto 23559

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Not a scam.  It's 100% legit?

 

Don't believe me?  Send me $1000 in bitcoin and see $2000 reciprocated in your account

how am i supposed to send you bitcoin if you don't provide me your social security number? I'm beginning to think you don't know how all of this works. 

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23475

Posted
Posted (edited)
51 minutes ago, Blotto said:

I kinda applaud whoever is behind this. First, it clowns twitter pretty badly, and fuck twitter. Second, there are no victims here. Anybody that gives Gates, Musk, Apple etc....bitcoin on the assumption they would immediately receive 2x their donated amount is too fucking stupid to bother with money. Those people will lose it all eventually, 100% of the time. This effort just accelerates that process, and I appreciate people that can figure out ways to greatly increase efficiency. 

Imagine the havoc they could wreck by posting to one account in particular.  Bigger play would be to tank the market with a series of tweets right around after open. 

full disclosure: I am kinda rooting for them to run that play in the morning. 

Edited by Anastasis
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GRHorn

GRHorn 105

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There’s more to this than meets the eye. I’m the farthest thing from a cyber security expert but evidently it was an API hack where potentially the hackers could access users DMs  

 

 

 

You gain access to the twitter accounts of the most powerful people in the world and you only net a couple hundred grand? They’re either the worst thieves ever or something else is afoot. 

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Blotto

Blotto 23559

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Now comes the real fun: extortion of billionaires and presidents for billions in bitcoin in exchange for not leaking their direct messages to the public

Please. Name one president that would be fucking stupid enough to exchange sensitive information via twitter DMs. 

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MaybeACoordinator

MaybeACoordinator 8349

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1 hour ago, BurntEyes said:

Oh and to merge back to topic from my derail...

I'm not sure there is a social media platform that surpasses Twitter for worthless stupidity. TikTok and Snapchat certainly are in the discussion but man... Twitter is all kinds of special needs gifted.

If only it were as harmless and even productive as the truly regarded. It's actually a major drag on discourse the whole world over. 

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52-80

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15 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Imagine the havoc they could wreck by posting to one account in particular.  Bigger play would be to tank the market with a series of tweets right around after open. 

full disclosure: I am kinda rooting for them to run that play in the morning. 

you know what I would do if I had twitter passwords? 

i would send half of my bitcoins to  elon musk, and take the other half to my cousin satoshi nakamoti who works in cryptocurrencies.

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52-80

52-80 19168

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55 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Their CEO is worth $7 billion.  There's a point at which, unless you are a Bezos or Musk, where you stop giving a shit.

maybe hes had tons of practice polishing his stoner philosophy, but i heard a long interview with him on joe rogan and came away impressed

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SDG

SDG 3319

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34 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

maybe hes had tons of practice polishing his stoner philosophy, but i heard a long interview with him on joe rogan and came away impressed

Maybe im miss remembering, but he couldn’t answer many off the cuff questions about Twitter.  

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GRHorn

GRHorn 105

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3 hours ago, 52-80 said:

maybe hes had tons of practice polishing his stoner philosophy, but i heard a long interview with him on joe rogan and came away impressed

He has principles and is well meaning, but I think given that he’s the CEO of two large companies (also square which is more of his net worth) he delegates to a lot of people with more malicious intent. 
 

I love his focus on the cash app and bitcoin on the Square side of things. #stonks 

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clapclapclap

clapclapclap 9000

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https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2020/07/31/17-year-old-in-tampa-arrested-for-hack-of-prominent-twitter-accounts/

Tampa teen arrested in hack of Twitter accounts of Obama, Bill Gates, Kanye West and others

Spoiler

 A 17-year-old was behind the Twitter hack that gave him access to the accounts of Bill Gates, Barack Obama and many other celebrities with millions of followers, authorities say.

Graham Ivan Clark was arrested Friday at his Tampa apartment, according to the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office.

“He’s a 17 year-old kid who apparently just graduated high school,” said State Attorney Andrew Warren. “But no make no mistake, this was not an ordinary 17-year-old. This was a highly sophisticated attack on a magnitude not seen before.”

Clark’s scheme was to steal the identities of prominent people, then post messages in their names directing victims to send Bitcoin to accounts he owned. The state attorney’s office said Friday that he reaped more than $100,000 in Bitcoin in just one day.

As a cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is difficult to track and recover if stolen in a scam.

“This defendant lives here in Tampa, he committed the crime here, and he’ll be prosecuted here,” Warren said in an online news conference.

He added that Florida law gives prosecutors greater flexibility to try a minor as an adult in a financial fraud case.

“I want to congratulate our federal law enforcement partners—the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, the FBI, the IRS, and the Secret Service—as well as the Florida Department of Law enforcement. They worked quickly to investigate and identify the perpetrator of a sophisticated and extensive fraud,” Warren said.

The hacking took place on July 15. At the time, Twitter said it was a “coordinated” attack targeting its employees “with access to internal systems and tools.”

Clark faces charges of one count of organized fraud of more than $50,000, 17 counts of felony communications fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, 10 counts of identity theft and one count for hacking and unlawful access to a computer in furtherance of a scheme to defraud.

He is expected to make a first appearance in court tomorrow.

Clark gained access to Twitter accounts and to the social media platform’s internal controls by compromising a Twitter employee, Warren said. Clark then sold access to those accounts and used the identities of prominent people to solicit money in the form of bitcoin, promising in return he would send back twice as much. He collected the bitcoin and never gave back the money he received.

“This was a massive fraud orchestrated right here in our own back yard and we won’t stand for that,” Warren said.

Clark allegedly tricked people into sending money to him with a similar message on the accounts he hacked into. For presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, Clark wrote:

“I am giving back to the community. All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes ... Enjoy!”

Some of the celebrities who authorities say were hacked by Clark included: Biden, Gates, Obama, Jeff Bezos, Mike Bloomberg, Warren Buffet, Wiz Khalifa, Floyd Mayweather, Elon Musk and Kanye West. A handful of companies had their accounts hacked, too, including Apple and Uber.

In an update on its internal investigation on Thursday, Twitter said that the incident targeted employees using a phone spear-phishing attack, according to a news release. At the time, the popular social networking company put a temporary freeze on all “verified” accounts to prevent further fraud from public figures.

31424412-8581665-image-m-29_159622092651

 

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MarkLotek

MarkLotek 4

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On 7/16/2020 at 12:53 AM, clapclapclap said:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/15/21326200/elon-musk-bill-gates-twitter-hack-bitcoin-scam-compromised

The Twitter accounts of major companies and individuals have been compromised in one of the most widespread and confounding hacks the platform has ever seen, all in service of promoting a bitcoin scam that appears to be earning its creator quite a bit of money. We don’t know how it’s happened or even to what extent Twitter’s own systems may have been compromised. The hack is ongoing, with new tweets posting to verified accounts on a regular basis starting shortly after 4PM ET.

It all began when Elon Musk’s Twitter account was seemingly compromised by a hacker intent on using it to run a bitcoin scam. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also had his account seemingly accessed by the same scammer, who posted a similar message with an identical bitcoin wallet address. Both accounts are continuing to post new tweets promoting the scam almost as fast as they are deleted. A spokesperson for Gates tells Recode’s Teddy Schleifer, “We can confirm that this tweet was not sent by Bill Gates. This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing. Twitter is aware and working to restore the account.”

Shortly after the initial wave of tweets from Gates and Musk’s accounts, the accounts of Apple, Uber, former President Barack Obama, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, hip-hop mogul Kanye West, and former New York City mayor and billionaire Mike Bloomberg, among others, were also compromised and began promoting the scam.

It’s unclear how widespread the operation is, but it appears to be affecting numerous major companies and extremely high-profile individuals. That suggests someone, or a group, has either found a severe security loophole in Twitter’s login process or third-party app, or that the perpetrator has somehow gained access to a Twitter employee’s admin privileges.

(snip)

 

Ec_3H2TWkAAcpa6?format=png&name=900x900

Very interesting. It's been more than a year. But the posts from the scammers still sometimes appear on Twitter.

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MarkLotek

MarkLotek 4

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On 7/16/2020 at 12:53 AM, clapclapclap said:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/15/21326200/elon-musk-bill-gates-twitter-hack-bitcoin-scam-compromised

The Twitter accounts of major companies and individuals have been compromised in one of the most widespread and confounding hacks the platform has ever seen, all in service of promoting a bitcoin scam that appears to be earning its creator quite a bit of money. We don’t know how it’s happened or even to what extent Twitter’s own systems may have been compromised. The hack is ongoing, with new tweets posting to verified accounts on a regular basis starting shortly after 4PM ET.

It all began when Elon Musk’s Twitter account was seemingly compromised by a hacker intent on using it to run a bitcoin scam. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also had his account seemingly accessed by the same scammer, who posted a similar message with an identical bitcoin wallet address. Both accounts are continuing to post new tweets promoting the scam almost as fast as they are deleted. A spokesperson for Gates tells Recode’s Teddy Schleifer, “We can confirm that this tweet was not sent by Bill Gates. This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing. Twitter is aware and working to restore the account.”

Shortly after the initial wave of tweets from Gates and Musk’s accounts, the accounts of Apple, Uber, former President Barack Obama, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, hip-hop mogul Kanye West, and former New York City mayor and billionaire Mike Bloomberg, among others, were also compromised and began promoting the scam.

It’s unclear how widespread the operation is, but it appears to be affecting numerous major companies and extremely high-profile individuals. That suggests someone, or a group, has either found a severe security loophole in Twitter’s login process or third-party app, or that the perpetrator has somehow gained access to a Twitter employee’s admin privileges.

It is interesting that there are people who refuse to believe in deception and want easy money.

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