In what that is said to be an attack on high-profile Twitter accounts last night (somewhere around 2 AM to 3 AM India time) the micro-blogging website was shocked. From Bill Gates to Barack Obama to Elon Musk and Apple there were a number of high-profile Twitter accounts that went under the effect of this attack.
The attack was a BitCoin attack or scam whereby the message tweeted from the hacked account read “Everyone is asking me to give back, You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 Minutes“. This was followed by a link for transfer. Twitter was quick to respond and said it was a “coordinated” attack targeting its employees “with access to internal systems and tools.
Accounts of Joe Biden, Kim Kardashian West, Kayne West, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Wiz Khalifa, Warren Buffett, YouTuber MrBeast, Wendy’s, Uber, CashApp and Mike Bloomberg were also hacked as part of the scam. “We know they [the hackers] used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf”, said Twitter.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that it was the tough day for the social media platform. Twitter support said that they have locked accounts that were compromised and will restore access to the original account owner. The team managed to get back the accounts to real owners as all the hacked accounts were restored. The first acknowledgment of the situation came from Twitter at around 2:45 p.m. PT. As a part of emergency response, twitter password reset requests were also being denied and some other account functions disabled.
We have locked accounts that were compromised and will restore access to the original account owner only when we are certain we can do so securely.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020
As per reports from TechCrunch said that a hacker, who goes by the handle “Kirk” — likely not their real name — generated over $100,000 in a matter of hours by gaining access to an internal Twitter tool, which they used to take control of popular Twitter accounts. For more details on how access to an internal tool on Twitter’s network, Kirk accessed an internal tool on Twitter’s network and executed the hack you can read more by clicking here.
