Twitter has just announced its biggest hacking in history. Many public figure accounts including former US president Barack Obama, Joe Biden (US Democratic Presidential Candidat), Bill Gates, Elon Musk and the others are the victim of this massive hacking.
The hacking is allegedly a work of digital currency scammers. According to CNBC, Musk tweeted a message asking to send $1,000 worth of Bitcoin. It also mentioned a specific address to transfer the money within 30 minutes. The tweet also promised that it would double the bitcoin.
A few minutes later, the post was deleted. But the account then tweeted the same post one after another. In total, Musk account tweeted and deleted the same tweet three times plus one reply to Bill Gates.
Other verified accounts from celebrities and brands are also the victim of this Major Twitter hacking
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, rapper Kanye West and Wiz Khalifa, and Warren Buffet were also the victims. Official accounts of Uber and Apple also reportedly tweeted the same thing.
In result, Bloomberg reported that the hackers gained $100,000 worth of bitcoin transferred to their account.
Twitter’s stock dropped over 2% in extended trading. “We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it.” the company said in a tweet.
Theresa Payton, former White House Chief Information Officer warned Twitter over this incident in an interview with CNBC. She said that Twitter needs to apologize and conduct a thorough and transparent investigation.
Some warn that the security incident could lead to the mass withdrawal of Twitter users in the future. In 2018, Facebook was hacked and the personal information of about 50 million users was exposed. Then a series of users in their 20s and 30s left the site due to many public figure’s declaration to not use Facebook. Musk also said he would delete Facebook pages and stop advertising on Facebook.
