Twitter Accounts Of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Barack Obama Hit By Hackers
The Twitter accounts of some of the richest and most famous people on the social media platform, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, former President Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kanye West and others, have been attacked in what appears to be a large-scale and coordinated cryptocurrency hack.
A spokeswoman for Twitter confirmed the incidents to NPR, saying the social network is investigating and taking steps to remove the posts. Twitter said that users may be unable to tweet or reset their passwords "while we review and address this incident."
One of the first high-profile accounts to share the scam was Gates' Twitter page.
"Everyone is asking me to give back and now is the time," the hackers wrote from Gates' account. "I am doubling all payments sent to my BTC address for the next 30 minutes. You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000."
Twitter removed the tweet, but it would reappear. Identical tweets, and a similar whack-a-mole response from Twitter, then was seen on the account of Musk and other celebrities, entertainers and politicians.
According to a public record of transactions tied to the bitcoin scam, transactions worth about $113,000 have been received through the link provided in the now-deleted tweets.
Mike Chapple, an information technology professor at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, said even if the scheme has been stopped, the damage has already been done.
"The way that cryptocurrency works, once a transfer takes place, it is irreversible and virtually untraceable," Chapple said. "The real question here is how the attackers gained access to these prominent Twitter accounts in the first place."
Chapple, a former computer scientist with the National Security Agency, said one line of investigation that Twitter and law enforcement may pursue is whether the hack occurred at a third-party service that had access to all the accounts.
Bitcoin investor Cameron Winklevoss warned his followers about the hack after the account of the company he co-founded, Gemini, was compromised in the attack, along with a number of other cryptocurrency accounts.
"This is a SCAM, DO NOT participate!" Winklevoss wrote. "... Be vigilant! Situation is ongoing."
Winklevoss said the security breach came despite Gemini using a "strong password" and two-factor authentication, a two-step process intended to guard against potential hacks.
It is not yet clear what person or group is behind the hacks. [Copyright 2020 NPR]
