FBI probe into Bitcoin-related Twitter hack begins
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched an investigation into the recent Twitter hack that resulted in a number of influential accounts being compromised.
The likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates were among a long list of names who fell victim to the hack, with tweets being sent out to followers pleading for Bitcoin to fraudulently be sent to the hacker’s address.
According to Cipher Trace, roughly $125,000 was sent to the hacker which has now prompted law enforcement around the world to step in.
“The accounts appear to have been compromised” to commit cryptocurrency fraud, the FBI said in a statement, according to the BBC.
We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020
Twitter revealed that the hacker had socially engineered a way of gaining control of staff accounts before sending tweets on the behalf of verified users.
“We know they [the hackers] used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf.” Twitter said in an announcement.
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has also published a statement, it read: “While this appears to be an attack on the company rather than individual users, we would urge people to treat requests for money or sensitive information on social media with extreme caution.”
One of the first accounts that was seemingly compromised was that of AngeloBTC, a cryptocurrency trader who has more than 100,000 followers.
The fact that cryptocurrency influencers were also targeted indicates that the hacker is likely a member of the cryptocurrency community, although so far the identity of the hacker is unclear.
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