Twitter accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden hacked in a bitcoin scam
San Francisco: In a shocking incident of breach of security lapses, a twitter account of Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, former President of US Barack Obama and Apple, among other prominent handles were hacked on Wednesday in a bitcoin scam, according to reports.
The accounts, along with those of former President Barack Obama, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and Mike Bloomberg, posted similar tweets soliciting donations via Bitcoin to their verified profiles on Wednesday.
Although, official twitter handle has compromised only for 30 minutes duration to allow transaction.
“Everyone is asking me to give back, and now is the time,” Gates’ tweet said, promising to double all payments to a Bitcoin address for the next 30 minutes.
Barack Obama’s Twitter account also appeared to be compromised as part of broader security the incident on the platform Wednesday.
The first Bitcoin wallet featured in some of the tweets only became active on Wednesday, Tim Cotten, a Bitcoin researcher, told one news business. In the hours immediately after the wallet’s identification number was posted to Twitter, it received more than $100,000 worth of Bitcoins through hundreds of transactions, Cotten said.
Some of that Bitcoin was then transferred to other wallets, he added. The apparent scam has also caught the attention of the FBI
In a tweet on Wednesday, Twitter’s support account said: “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.”
A little more than an hour after the attack began, Twitter apparently moved to prevent holders of verified accounts from tweeting.
“You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident,” Twitter’s support account said.
Last year, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s account was hacked.
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