Apple, Elon Musk, Kanye West and other accounts are tweeting a bitcoin scam in the giant Twitter hack

Elon Musk’s Twitter account has apparently been compromised by a hacker’s intention to use it to run a bitcoin scam. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also had access to his account apparently by the same scammer, who posted a similar message with an identical bitcoin wallet address. Both accounts continue to post new tweets promoting the scam almost as fast as they are removed.

Shortly after the initial wave of tweets, Apple accounts, Uber, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, hip-hop magnate Kanye West, former New York City mayor and billionaire Mike Bloomberg, and even former President Barack Obama has also been compromised and is promoting the scam.It is unclear how widespread the operation is, but it appears to be affecting major companies and extremely high-profile people, suggesting that someone has found a severe security breach. in the Twitter login process or have gained access to the administrator privileges of a Twitter employee.

The Tesla CEO account released a mysterious tweet at 4:17 PM ET this afternoon saying, “I feel generous for Covid-19. I will duplicate any BTC payments sent to my BTC address within the next hour. Good luck and stay safe there! The tweet also contained a bitcoin address, presumably one associated with the hacker’s crypto wallet.

The tweet was removed and replaced by another tweet featuring the fake promotion. “Feeling grateful duplicating all payments sent to my BTC address! They send $ 1,000, I send $ 2,000! Just doing this for the next 30 minutes, “it read before being removed.

The tweet posted to Gates’s account echoed Musk’s latest tweet, with an identical BTC address attached. It was also removed shortly after posting, only to have a similar message take its place.

At least one other account, Square’s Cash app, appears to have been compromised as well. However, it is unclear if the culprit is the same or if it is a form of coordinated scam on behalf of a group, since the tweet contained a different BTC address than the one published in the Gates and Musk accounts.

In addition to the Cash app, popular Twitter crypto accounts, including those from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss’ Gemini cryptocurrency exchange and the widely used wallet app Coinmbase, were also compromised. Cameron Winklevoss claims that the Gemini account was protected by two-factor authentication and used a strong password, and the company is now investigating how it was affected.

In fact, some people fall for the scam and send money to the associated BTC addresses, as the transaction logs are public due to the nature of blockchain-based cryptocurrency. So far, the scammer appears to have earned more than $ 55,000.

Musk has long been the target of Twitter bitcoin scammers, many of whom create fake accounts designed to look like the businessman and respond to his tweets promoting scams to make them appear legitimate. Twitter even went so far as to start blocking some accounts that change their name to “Elon Musk,” and the company identified cryptocurrency scammers in the spring of 2018 as a known source of manipulation and deception aimed at removing the bans. . and other moderation strategies.

Neither Tesla nor Twitter immediately responded to requests for comment.

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