Multiple high-profile Twitter accounts – belonging to both individuals and corporations – have been successfully targeted in an unprecedented attack by hackers starting early on Wednesday evening (July 15), with the compromised accounts sharing posts promoting a Bitcoin scam.
“I am giving back to my fans,” reads one of the now-deleted messages, posted to almost 30 million followers from Kanye West’s verified Twitter account. “All Bitcoin sent to my address below will be sent back doubled. I am only doing a maximum of $10,000,000.”
Similar posts have been screenshotted on the Twitter accounts of Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk, a fellow billionaire that recently gave, then retracted, support for Kanye’s upcoming presidential bid. “Feeling greatful, doubling all payments sent to my BTC address!” reads the tweet sent through Elon’s account. “You send $1,000, I send back $2,000!”
It seems that the scammers have primarily targeted the accounts of particularly wealthy people or organisations to make the scam more believable. Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Uber, and Apple have reportedly been compromised, as well as the former president Barack Obama and presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Despite the fact the scam might seem pretty obvious, almost 300 people have fallen for it within a few hours of the first tweets appearing, depositing over $100,000 to the address, according to the New York Times.
Twitter has announced that it is currently “investigating” the security breach, while the FBI has also been made aware, but has no other immediate comment, according to NBC.
It goes without saying: don’t send money to anyone offering to double it for free over the internet.
View screenshotted posts from the hacked accounts below.