(PresidentialWire.com)- Social media giant Twitter was hit by a massive hack on Wednesday, with some of the platform’s biggest accounts compromised by Bitcoin scammers. Some of the most influential and popular Twitter accounts in the world, run by Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and others, were targeted by the hack. It saw the hackers posting information about a Bitcoin scam and encouraging people to send money to a specific address.
The con artists posed as the users and claimed that they were “giving back” to their fans by doubling their Bitcoin money. Tweets appeared on accounts from Obama, Biden, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Kanye West, and others, telling people to send money to a Bitcoin address and they would return the favor by sending back twice as much.
It was successful, too. Reports suggest that as much as $100,000 was taken in by the hackers. Given the fact that Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, it’s unlikely that people will ever see that money ever again and the people who own it are unlikely to be identified, too.
The tweets have since been deleted by Twitter to avoid more people falling victim to the scam, but screenshots of the tweet show a general theme on each account.
Hackers used Joe Biden’s account to say, “I am giving back to the community. All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes.”
Obama, Joe Biden, PM of Israel and others also #hacked to tweet the bitcoin scam. pic.twitter.com/Nw8eE2E4lF
— Mike Coudrey (@MichaelCoudrey) July 15, 2020
Reports suggest that the hack may have done more than take money from innocent people, though. It’s possible that it exposed private Twitter conversations of some of the nation’s biggest celebrities and figures. President Barack Obama’s private messages may have been exposed and could at some point be made public. Can you imagine?
Twitter said on July 15 that they were aware of the incident and were taking steps to fix it.
We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 15, 2020
As an immediate response to the hack, Twitter disabled all verified users from being able to Tweet. It meant for once that Twitter was free from the narcissistic rambling of mostly left-wing journalists. It was bliss…for a while.
Now they’re all back, and Twitter is handling the mess. We’re likely to hear much more about this in the coming days.
