On July 15, a number of verified Twitter accounts belonging to major figures in politics, entertainment, tech, and business were hacked. Each account varying versions of the same message, asking followers to donate money in cryptocurrency with the promise of being paid back double the amount.
It is a scam, and an unknown amount of people have been swindled into sending the account more than $100,000 total in cryptocurrency.
Here's a growing, running list of every account that has shown to be compromised by the hack.
What happened? — On July 15, 2020, an unidentified party successfully hacked the official Twitter accounts to major figures like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Kanye West, Mike Bloomberg, and Democratic nominee for President, Joe Biden.
The tweets composed of the same exact message, asking followers to donate money in exchange for double the amount. The tweets included a working Bitcoin address to send the money to. On Blockchain.com, the account has received a total of "12.86" BTC, which in U.S. currency equates to roughly $118,482.65.
At 5:45 p.m. Eastern, Twitter published a statement on its technical support account, Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) confirming it is aware of the situation. "We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter," the site said. "We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly."
Who was hacked? — The following is a list of accounts we have identified have been victims of the hack.
Elon Musk, entrepreneur, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company
Bill Gates, entrepreneur, Microsoft
Joe Biden, Democratic nominee for President of the United States
Barack Obama, politician, 44th President of the United States
Apple, software and hardware giant
Jeff Bezos, entrepreneur, Amazon
Kanye West, musician and entrepreneur
Uber, ride-sharing service
Mike Bloomberg, entrepreneur and politician
CashApp, mobile payment service
Wiz Khalifa, musician
Warren Buffett, investor and tycoon
Floyd Mayweather, boxer
CZ Binance, CEO of Binance
Tron Foundation
KUCOIN
Go deeper:
- July 15 is an important day for Twitter. Maybe it's why hackers chose it.
- A complete list of every verified account that was hacked.
- How the July 15 Twitter hack unfolded in real-time.
- How secure is Twitter, anyway? Its history is spotty.
- Bitcoin is perfect for scams, which is why the hackers probably chose it.
From our friends at INPUT:
