Twitter hack: Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Bill Gates and odas na im hackers target inside ogbonge Bitcoin scam

Barack Obama, Bill Gtaes, Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk

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Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates dey among many ogbonge US figures wey hackers bin target ontop Twitter for wetin be like Bitcoin scam.

Di official accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kanye West also ask for di crypto currency donations.

“Everyone dey ask me to give back,” one tweet from Mr Gates’ account tok. “You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.”

“Tough day for us here for Twitter. We all feel terrible say dis kain tin happun,” na so CEO Jack Dorsey tweet late on Wednesday.

“We dey chook eye inside and will go share everything we fit wen we get a more complete understanding of exactly wetin happun,” na so Mr Dorsey tok.

Twitter bin don take ogbonge step to stop many verified accounts wey get di blue ticks mark from tweeting altogether.

Dem also deny password reset requests and disable some oda “account functions”.

Na by 20:30 EDT (00:30 GMT Thursday) users with verified account bin dey able to send tweets again, but Twitter say dem still dey work to fix tins.


Dmitri Alperovitch, wey co-found cyber-security company CrowdStrike, tell Reuters news agency say: “Dis one appear to be di worst hack of a major social media platform yet.”

Ontop di official account of Mr Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX chief appear to offer to double any Bitcoin payment wey pesin send to di address of im digital wallet “for di next 30 minutes”.

“I dey feel generous because of Covid-19,” di tweet tok, with post of one Bitcoin link address.

Dem delete di tweets just minutes afta dem first post dem.

A hacked tweet from Elon Musk's account

Twitter
One of the hacked tweets from Elon Musk’s account

But as dat tweet from Musk account dey go, anoda one appear, and di third one.


Who else dem target?

As well as rapper Kanye West, im wife, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, former US President Obama, Mr Biden, wey be di current Democratic presidential candidate, and media billionaire Mike Bloomberg, di hackers also target major companies Uber and Apple.

Di Biden campaign say Twitter don “lock down di account within a few minutes of di breach and remove di related tweet”.

A hacked tweet from Apple's account

Twitter
A hacked tweet from Apple’s account

Di BBC fit report from one security source say web address – cryptoforhealth.com – wia some of di hacked tweets direct users dey registered by one cyber-attacker wey use di email address [email protected].

Di name “Anthony Elias” naim dem use to register di website.

Cryptoforhealth na also di registered handle ontop Instagram, wey e be like say di hackers set up too.

Di description of di profile read “It was us”, along with one smiling face emoticon.

Di Instagram profile also post message say: “Na charity attack, your money go find im way to di right place.”

Instagram post on Cryptoforhealth account

Instagram

How much dem make?

In di short time e dey online, di link wey dem display inside di tweets of targeted accounts receive hundreds of contributions of more dan $100,000 (£80,000), according to publicly available blockchain records.

Di Twitter accounts bin target all get millions of followers.

Last year, hackers hack Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey account, but di company bin say dem don fix di error wey bin leave im account very vulnerable.