Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said it prevented about 1,100 customers from sending bitcoins to hackers who gained access to high-profile Twitter accounts last week.
Last Wednesday, more than 100 Twitter accounts, some belonging to big companies like Apple and high-profile people like Vice President Joe Biden and Bill Gates, were hacked as part of a massive coordinated bitcoin scam. According to Twitter, hackers were able to convince some of the company’s employees to use internal tools and systems to access accounts and help hackers defraud users into sending them bitcoins.
According to Forbes, Coinbase and other cryptocurrency exchanges were able to prevent some customers from sending bitcoins to hackers by blacklisting the hackers wallet address. Specifically, Coinbase says it prevented more than 1,000 customers from sending around $ 280,000 in bitcoins during last Wednesday’s attack. Approximately 14 Coinbase users sent around $ 3,000 in bitcoins to the scam’s bitcoin address before the company was blacklisted, the company said.
“We noticed the scam and started blocking transactions within minutes of the initial wave of scam posts,” said a Coinbase spokesperson. The edge Monday.
Twitter accounts belonging to cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance and Gemini, were also attacked during Wednesday’s attack. Coinbase chief information officer said Forbes on Sunday he learned of the scam shortly after tweets from other exchange accounts were posted.
As of Monday, Twitter continues to investigate Wednesday’s attack. On Friday, the company posted a blog post confirming that 130 accounts were attacked and that hackers were able to initiate a password reset, log into the account, and send tweets for 45 of those accounts. Twitter also said that hackers were able to download account data from eight unverified users.
