Published 10:00 IST, July 16th 2020
Twitter hacking sees Kanye West, Kim & Wiz Khalifa fall prey; accounts temporarily blocked
Twitter accounts of Hollywood celebrities like rap mogul Kanye West, musician Wiz Khalifa and Kanye's wife Kim were hacked by Bitcoin scammers on July 15.
American rap mogul Kanye West is one of the many celebrated personalities whose Twitter account was hijacked by BitCoin scammers on July 15. The tweet from his account read, "I am giving back to my fans" as it went on to ask users to transfer cryptocurrency that "will be sent back doubled." Along with a bitcoin wallet address, it went onto add, "Only doing this for the next 30 minutes!”
Rapper Wiz Khalifa was also targeted in the scam where his account shared a similar message for the users with the same cryptocurrency wallet address. Among other accounts compromised were Kanye's wife Kim Kardashian, former US president Barrack Obama, presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Twitter accounts of Apple, Uber, Square’s CashApp and many more.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ account also posted a similar message at 1:48 pm PT but then it was quickly deleted. Twitter accounts of Apple, Uber, Square’s CashApp, and Coinbase were also hacked with the intent to post similar messages which contained a bitcoin wallet address that directed to the hackers. A series of scam tweets were launched that read, “I‘m feeling greatful, doubling all payments sent to my BTC address.” While the tweets contained similar bitcoin addresses, presumably one associated with the hacker’s crypto wallet that funneled funds from the users, Twitter notified that the accounts were currently in review.
Immediately, a Twitter spokesperson said in a tweet that the team was “looking into the matter.” The company stated that it will share a statement soon. In a tweet around 6 pm ET, Twitter Support wrote that it was “aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly.”
Further, the company notified that the users would be unable to send any tweets from their verified handle as it had blocked the user login and reset passwords rights as it probed the bitcoin scam.
Spams emerged despite two-factor authentication
As per reports, the bitcoin wallet has amassed over $100,000 within the last few hours as a series of spams emerged despite two-factor authentications set on many of these celebrity accounts.
While some of the scam tweets were taken down by Twitter, a load of subsequent spam tweets followed that read, “Feeling grateful 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.”
Updated 10:00 IST, July 16th 2020