Obama to Musk, VIPs targeted by Twitter scammers
SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter is investigating a massive hack in which high-profile users from Barack Obama to Elon Musk had their accounts hijacked by scammers, who the social network believes targeted its employees to gain access to internal systems.
Twitter said the scam, which duped people into sending hackers Bitcoins worth $116,000, was a “coordinated social engineering attack”.
NEWYORK: The Twitter accounts of some of the most prominent US political and business leaders, from Barack Obama and Joe Biden to Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett, were hacked on Wednesday afternoon in an apparent effort to promote a Bitcoin scam.
The attacks were stunning in scope and coordinated. Others whose Twitter accounts were caught up in the security incident included Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Kanye West, Uber, Apple and Michael Bloomberg. The accounts sent out tweets promising to double the money of anyone sending funds via Bitcoin within 30 minutes.
As the hack unfolded, verified Twitter accounts lost the ability to post new tweets. “You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident,” Twitter wrote on its support account.
The company’s shares fell 6% in pre-market trading in New York on Thursday.
Within hours, Twitter said that access has been restored for most accounts and added what it knew from its probe. It said the hack targeted employees with access to internal systems, which were then used to take control of high-profile accounts.
CEO Jack Dorsey said, “Tough day for us at Twitter.”