Gotcha! Kim Kardashian, Elon Musk and more stars are among those whose Twitter accounts were hacked on Wednesday, July 15, in an attempt to steal bitcoin funds.
“Feeling nice! All BTC sent to my will be sent back doubled, enjoy,” Kardashian’s account tweeted at 6:05 p.m. ET. It has since been deleted.
The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star’s message mirrored similar fake tweets seen on Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kanye West and Bill Gates’ profiles throughout the day. The widespread takeover is centered on the false promise of giving bitcoin currency to individuals who send cryptocurrency to a specific bitcoin address, The Washington Post reported.
A now-deleted tweet sent from Musk’s profile read, “Feeling greatful, doubling all payments sent to my BTC address! You send $1,000, I send back $2,000! Only doing this for the next 30 minutes.”
Corporate accounts also fell victim to the scam with Uber and Apple’s profiles sending out messages asking for money.
“Due to Covid-19, we are giving back over $10,000,000 in Bitcoin! All payments sent to our address below will be sent back doubled,” an Uber post read. The company later confirmed that it had been hacked.
As a result of the incident, Twitter has blocked all verified accounts with blue checkmarks from being able to post until the issue is resolved.
“We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter,” Twitter support wrote on Wednesday on the social media platform. “We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly.”
The company explained that many users won’t be able to tweet or reset their password while the investigation into the hack is underway.
“We’re continuing to limit the ability to Tweet, reset your password, and some other account functionalities while we look into this. Thanks for your patience,” the support team added.
Bitcoin investor Cameron Winklevoss was one of the verified account holders telling his followers not to take part in the sham.
“This is a SCAM, DO NOT participate!” he tweeted. “This is the same attack/takeover that other major crypto twitter accounts are experiencing. Be vigilant! Situation is ongoing.”
According to CNN Business, the FBI is also looking into the fraudulent actions.
The culprits behind the incident have yet to be found and Twitter hasn’t announced how the lapse in security happened.
