Biggest Twitter Hack Updates: High-profile accounts hacked in major breach, crypto scam

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Twitter accounts of celebrities, popular brands hacked.

Twitter Hack: The Twitter accounts of various high-profile personalities like Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian, Bill Gates, Mike Bloomberg, Elon Musk, Kanye West, and others got hacked on Wednesday. This came to light when fake tweets offering to send $2,000 for every $1,000 sent to a bitcoin address were made through these accounts. Not only this, but the scam appeared to have happened in two rounds after the same Bitcoin-scamming tweets were made for the second time from the official accounts of Bill Gates and Elon Musk after their first tweets were deleted. Twitter Support announced on Wednesday evening that its team was investigating and wrote, "We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly."

Twitter biggest hack LIVE updates:

Justin Sun, Tron founder and CEO of BitTorrent has announced a sum of $1 million. BitTorrent's official Twitter account tweeted, "TRON Founder & CEO of @BitTorrent, Justin Sun is putting out a Bounty for the hackers in the amount of $1 million. He will personally pay those who successfully track down, and provide evidence for bringing to justice, the hackers/people behind this hack affecting our community."

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Twitter hack spreads major cryptocurrency scam

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Jul 16, 2020 10:52 AM (IST) Posted by Devesh Arora

Fake Tweets helped hackers get Rs. 85 Lakhs

Fake tweets from accounts of technology moguls, politicians, celebrities and major companies led to the accumulation of almost 12.9 bitcoins by the end of Wednesday. The amount is currently valued at slightly more than $114,000 (nearly ₹86 lakhs when converted to INR). The Bitcoin account mentioned in the fake tweets appears to have been created on Wednesday. At some point during the day, roughly half that sum in bitcoin was withdrawn from the account.

Read the full story - Rs 85 lakh: The amount Bitcoin account in fake tweet received post hack
Jul 16, 2020 9:45 AM (IST) Posted by Devesh Arora

What is Bitcoin?

Why are hackers asking for Bitcoins using high-profile Twitter accounts? Read - What is cryptocurrency? Why are Twitter hackers asking for Bitcoins?

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Bitcoin or BTC
Jul 16, 2020 8:55 AM (IST) Posted by Devesh Arora

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responds

Commenting on the attack, Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO said, "Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened. We’re diagnosing and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened. (Heart emoji) to our teammates working hard to make this right."
Jul 16, 2020 8:55 AM (IST) Posted by Devesh Arora

Twitter stops ability to send tweets for some accounts

After the issue was reported, Twitter also stopped the ability to send tweets for some accounts. The Twitter support tweeted, "You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address the incident." "We’re continuing to limit the ability to Tweet, reset your password, and some other account functionalities while we look into this. Thanks for your patience," it further added.
Jul 16, 2020 8:54 AM (IST) Posted by Devesh Arora

Twitter has currently locked all verified accounts

Further, they tweeted, "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."
Jul 16, 2020 8:53 AM (IST) Posted by Devesh Arora

Twitter responds

Twitter security informed that they have locked certain accounts and will restore the access only when everything is secured. They wrote, "Internally, we’ve taken significant steps to limit access to internal systems and tools while our investigation is ongoing. More updates to come as our investigation continues."
Jul 16, 2020 8:52 AM (IST) Posted by Devesh Arora

Elon Musk's account used to request Bitcoins

Elon Musk now-deleted tweet read, "Feeling grateful doubling all payments sent to my BTC address! You send $1,000, I send back $2,000! Only doing this for the next 30 minutes."
Jul 16, 2020 8:52 AM (IST) Posted by Devesh Arora

This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing - Bill Gates

Gates, who has become one of the world's leading philanthropists since stepping down as Microsoft CEO, confirmed the tweet wasn't from him. “This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing," a spokesperson for the billionaire said in a statement. The tweet read, "We can confirm that this tweet was not sent by Bill Gates. This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing. Twitter is aware and working to restore the account."