Twitter accounts of Obama, Biden, Musk and others 'hacked' in apparent Bitcoin scam

ianh

ianh

ianh

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I genuinely didn't think was a real story when I first saw it but it's now being reported by the Mainstream Media so I thought I'd post it here.

Here's a few links -

https://news.sky.com/story/twitter-...hers-hacked-in-apparent-bitcoin-scam-12029394

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/securi...ver-twitter-accounts-bill-gates-elon-n1233948

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...ts-users-send-money-return-double-amount.html

What a shocker for Twitter and what an eye-opener for those who read these accounts. Imagine the carnage this hack would cause if it had been used on the morning of the Election with both Biden and Obama "tweeting" some insane stuff, rather than the hackers "wasting" the opportunity with this obvious Bitcoin scam!
 
FYI

All verified accounts were prevented from tweeting (but could retweet) and the bitcoin address was quickly blacklisted.

Plenty of jokes doing the rounds how nobody tweeted from Trumps account - due to nobody believing him.
 
Looks like there was an insider breach or someone gained access to some privileged accounts as there are screenshots going around of a kind of twitter admin panel which was used to take over the affected accounts.
 
this was pretty dumb tbh... presumably there is more security surrounding Trump's account but otherwise obvious move there to just tweet something hawkish on Iran while having a long positon in WTI etc..

Of course Elon's account could have been better used too - just wait till markets are open... TSLA has been moving quite a bit as it is... and elon has past for for market moving tweets (just as Trump has form for hawkish foreign policy tweets) - take a positon in TSLA and then make a dumb Elon tweet and watch the stock move = $$$$

Trump idea probs better tbh.. in terms of potential angles to take advantage of it without being too obvious

instead these chumps have chump change of the order of circa six figures in a bitcoin address that they now need to shift about in order to extract.... could have made millions if they had half a brain

I hope they at least shorted twitter stock before doing this...

Also this is blatantly going to be down to someone senior (at least in terms of tech if not management) at twitter, with some high level admin panel access... being a chump with their personal security while working from home!
 
XeNoN89 said:
Looks like there was an insider breach or someone gained access to some privileged accounts as there are screenshots going around of a kind of twitter admin panel which was used to take over the affected accounts.
Click to expand...

Yeah, easily the most likely explanation... lets face it these accounts (inc Gates, Musk) would have MFA, secure tokens etc.. next to no chance they were "hacked"... more likely some muppet/enginer from twitter, working from home was compromised...

or maybe someone went rogue deliberately... though doubtful
 
Well it seems rather pitiful honestly, the amount of people who would have been fooled in that timescale is minimal so the risk in doing this seems irrational to me. Maybe it was a warning to management for whatever reason.
 
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StriderX said:
Well it seems rather pitiful honestly, the amount of people who would have been fooled in that timescale is minimal so the risk seems unnecessary. Maybe it was a warning to management for whatever reason.
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Doubtful - Hanlon's razor probs applies here...

some hacker, perhaps on the spectrum so to speak... compromises a twitter employee (maybe is a former employee too)... but they're a bit narrow minded/focused on the tech side, not so creative re: the nagle they could play here... so their go to solution is that of any (slightly special) tech guy... herp derp bitcoin....
 
Genuine question as I know little about crypto currency - is it untraceable?

I'm guessing you have to sell the currency to convert it into real cash? Would these coins be blacklisted?
 
Mekrel said:
Genuine question as I know little about crypto currency - is it untraceable?

I'm guessing you have to sell the currency to convert it into real cash? Would these coins be blacklisted?
Click to expand...

I think most of it is traceable, is it not just private wallets that are untraceable??
 
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StriderX said:
I think most of it is traceable, is it not just private wallets that are untraceable?
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There are no private wallets on bitcoin. All you can do to obfuscate the trail is put it through a mixer, but that isn't foolproof as you don't know you can trust the other parties you're mixing the coins with, or who they are.
 
If it *only* happened to Elon and not the others it could come across as plausible and worth a punt.

P(Elon on the weed, tweeting something that will cost him money) > P(Twitter security compromised for account with MFA, secure token etc...)

Granted also need to ignore there have been bitcoin hacks before using other bluecheckmark accounts. But basic assumption that Elon’s legit account would be otherwise secure (from his side at least) ought to be sound.
 
Derek W said:
Conclusive proof that there's at least 112 utter morons on twitter with a 'spare' grand sitting about :o
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100% agree - Still can't believe the amount of individuals that manage to get through the day, but yet fall for the most ridiculous "scams" going and then whine about loosing money.
 
deuse said:
They should just ban bit coin.
Click to expand...

:D



Can actually believe Elon would say something like this.

I guess this was a simple way to make a lot of money.
There are all sorts of things you could do . But this is quite simple.

Makes twitter look very very vulnerable though.
 
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