Major US Twitter Accounts Hacked In A 'Coordinated' Cryptocurrency Scam

An apparent cryptocurrency scam has targeted the Twitter accounts of prominent billionaires in the U.S. on Wednesday. Among the hijacked accounts were those belonging to Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Apple and others.

According to the report, Twitter (TWTR) believes the attacks were initially targeted at its employees who had access to the company's internal tools which allowed them access to the affected accounts.

Twitter spoke on an interview regarding the hacking and implored that they detected the activity and believed it to be a "coordinated social engineering attack."

The Wednesday attack was believed to be similar to the ones that took a hit on those of former President Barack Obama, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos and Mike Bloomberg as the method by which the scam was conducted was identical.

The tweets all asked for Bitcoin donations to be sent to the hackers' accounts via the verified users' accounts.

During the attack, the Twitter account of American business magnate Bill Gates had posted: "Everyone is asking me to give back, and now is the time." It posted that it will double all payments made to the Bitcoin address if they are wired in the succeeding 30 minutes.

These tweets were subsequently deleted.

Twitter detailed how they handled the hacking spree of these perpetrators and ensured Americans that they have locked the accounts of those affected.

Jack Dorsey who is the CEO of Twitter posted a series of tweets on Wednesday and cited how they are fixing the current issue.

Approximately an hour after the attack, Twitter decided they will be taking out the tweeting functionality for a few hours to minimize risks on a sustained hacking. Twitter is yet to know what other data has been breached.

According to business critics, the said attack is the biggest of its kind as it has targeted and victimized the most prominent individuals in the country. They fear such an attack could be used against world leaders like President Donald Trump who uses the platform in making national announcements.

A Bitcoin researcher named Tim Cotten said that the Bitcoin address has been online only recently and that it had collected over $100,000 in Bitcoins.

FBI's San Francisco Field Office confirmed the report and advised the public not to succumb to these high-profile scams.