The accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and others tweeted messages promoting Bitcoin scams. Some attempted to encourage people to send money to accounts, while Twitter’s own founder Jack Dorsey’s account was compromised, posting and retweeting odd Bitcoin-related tweets. Apple’s official Twitter account even sent out a tweet. Apple doesn’t use its Twitter account, and only occasionally sends promoted tweets. Kanye West’s official account still had the below tweets up at the time of writing, falsely claiming he’d send back double the amount of Bitcoin sent to him by individuals. The tweet’s replies contain a number of people claiming to have sent money but many use the same screenshot, making it impossible to realistically see who may have fallen for the scam. Either way, it is an embarrassing hack for Twitter to now deal with, particularly with its CEO and other high profile blue tick verified accounts affected. These verified accounts are trusted to only tweet things by the person or company, or sentiments sent on their behalf. Twitter is used as a trusted platform by politicians and lawmakers. This hack, despite its unimaginative contents, proves that Twitter’s security is severely compromised.
Twitter’s official support account said it was “investigating”, but did not take Twitter offline. The company immediately came under criticism for taking over an hour to issue a statement.
Twitter then blocked verified accounts from tweeting in order to stop the scams being sent out.
It is a foreboding warning that it is possible to hack the most followed accounts on Twitter and send tweets out from them, with Twitter appearing unable to act fast to shut it down. The trust in the platform will surely take a significant hit from this, particularly as it has affected mainly US accounts right before a Presidential election. Notably, Donald Trump’s account does not appear to have been compromised. Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.
