Twitter Hack Special: $120K Stolen, FBI Investigate, Calls to Ban BTC — Hodler’s Digest, July 13–19
Top celebrities, politicians, and businesses are caught up in a “social engineering attack” on Twitter — with theories swirling around that it could have been an “inside job.”
Elon Musk, Kanye West and Bill Gates’ Twitter accounts hacked by Bitcoin thief
This week, Twitter and Bitcoin suffered a PR disaster. In a coordinated, ambitious attack, about 130 high-profile accounts were hijacked. Top celebrities, entrepreneurs, politicians, businesses, and crypto exchanges were affected. Many posted similar tweets that promised followers that Bitcoin payments sent to a specific address would be doubled. Fraudulent messages were speedily deleted — but on some profiles, such as Elon Musk’s, they quickly reappeared again. Twitter had little choice but to suspend all verified accounts as it struggled to get on top of the breach. It’s estimated the attackers received 375 payments worth $120,000 as a result of the attack, with one Japanese wallet sending $40,000 in BTC. Blockchain intelligence firms have said some of the cryptos has been moved and sent through mixing services, and the FBI has launched an investigation.
Twitter hack: “Social engineering attack” on employee admin panels
The attack has been described as a threat to national security. We still don’t know whether the criminals managed to access sensible information found in direct messages. It seems the scammers were able to succeed with their audacious hack because employees have high levels of access to information and control on the platform. Twitter has vowed to add more security measures in an announcement that smacks of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Tron founder Justin Sun is offering a reward of $1 million to those who track down the attackers. Early detective work suggests the hackers aren’t sophisticated Bitcoin users as they left trails leading to and from major exchanges that presumably hold the keys to their identities. Research from Whitestream indicates they appear to be consolidating their funds to an address that had earlier sent money to BitPay and Coinbase.
Twitter account of Joe Biden Twitter hack:
The crypto world responds One mystery behind the hack is how the attackers obtained access to so many high-profile accounts. Some theories suggest it was an “inside job” and the work of a disgruntled former or current Twitter employee. Others claimed it was clear that the hackers had a “super low IQ” as anyone with access to so many influential accounts could have easily chosen to manipulate the markets through FUD rather than run giveaway scams. One journalist, Josh Barro, tweeted: “You know, we wouldn’t have to worry about this sort of thing if cryptocurrency was illegal. I’m not kidding. Crypto has no socially beneficial uses and quite a few socially harmful uses. Why is it allowed?” This argument was quickly shot down in flames — with others pointing out how Twitter’s centralized controls led to this mess in the first place. As Anthony Pompliano tweeted
“Twitter was hacked. Bitcoin has never been hacked.”