It affects Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Barack Obama among others: on Twitter, they and other celebrities make dubious Bitcoin offers. A fake. Never before have so many accounts been misused. This raises questions about Twitter's security measures.
In an unprecedented attack on Twitter, strangers have succeeded in promoting Bitcoin fraud through profiles of celebrities like ex-President Barack Obama and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Twitter promised to clarify whether the hackers could also gain access to information from the affected accounts.
According to the company's initial findings, Twitter employees with access to internal systems were targeted in a coordinated attack. Since the beginning of the Corona crisis, a large part of the workforce has been working from home. At the same time, the Internet portal "Vice", citing an alleged attacker, reported that they had also paid a Twitter insider for his help. The information could not initially be confirmed independently.
Direct systems used by Twitter?
However, the extent of the attack suggests that this time it was not an app linked to accounts that was used, as in previous cases, but that Twitter systems were used directly for this. The celebrity accounts are likely to be protected with complex passwords and two-factor authentication, which also requires a freshly sent code to log on to another device. However, these security precautions could obviously be undermined by accessing Twitter systems.
In the message distributed via the accounts on Wednesday, it was promised to repay the bitcoins sent in twice. Profiles of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, rapper Kanye West, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Tesla boss Elon Musk were also misused. Donald Trump's account, for which Twitter is a central communication channel, was not affected.
116,000 euros have already flowed
The company was able to stop the fraudulent action relatively quickly, but according to Blockchain.com, which is monitoring cryptocurrency transactions, Bitcoins worth $ 116,000 have already flowed.
Twitter always has to deal with hacker attacks. In March 2017, the accounts of the human rights organization Amnesty International, the French Ministry of Economic Affairs and the BBC North America were hacked, possibly by supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Last August, Jack Dorsey's account was also affected: Unknowns posted abusive and racist statements on behalf of the Twitter founder.
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