The Twitter accounts of billionaires Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and technology companies including Apple Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc., appear to have been hacked Wednesday afternoon.
This is the latest instance as part of a widespread bitcoin giveaway scam, in which users with millions of followers have been compromised on the social- media platform.
The accounts of Gates, Bezos, Musk, Apple and others posted similar messages requesting money be sent to cryptocurrency accounts. The messages received thousands of likes before they were taken down.
Musk posted multiple tweets Wednesday afternoon containing what claimed to be his bitcoin address, saying he was “feeling generous because of COVID-19.Gates’ account sent a nearly identical tweet minutes later, followed by Bezos.
Musk’s account followed up with another tweet stating that if “You send $1,000, I send back $2,000!for the following 30 minutes.
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Bezos’ account was compromised around 5 p.m. Wednesday, with the exec tweeting that he would only do “a maximum of $50,000,000in bitcoin giveaways.
The tweets on all three accounts have each only stayed up a few minutes before being removed.
Business Insider said, Musk’s, Gates’, and Bezos’ accounts aren’t the only one that have been compromised. Several high-profile financial services and crypto exchange accounts, such as Cash App, Ripple, Binance, and Coinbase, were affected on Wednesday as well.
According to CoinDesk , the attackers hacked Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, after he attempted to warn users of the scam. Several of the entities that were hacked, including CoinDesk, had multi-factor authentication turn on, the site reports.
Accounts for tech companies like Apple and Uber also appeared to be hacked as part of the same bitcoin scam. Those tweets have since been deleted.
A Twitter spokesperson told Business Insider the issue is “being looked into.In a tweet, the company reiterated that it is working to fix the problem.
in February about the ongoing issue, saying that “The crypto scam level on Twitter is reaching new levels. This is not cool.”
