The Tweets Heard ‘round the World – High-Profile Twitter Accounts Used to Send Fake Cryptocurrency Messages

Yesterday afternoon fake Tweets began circumnavigating the Twitter-sphere after a malicious actor presumably gained access to Twitter’s internal systems and tools. In what is believed to be a coordinated social engineering attack, several high-profile and Twitter-verified globally influential accounts tweeted fake cryptocurrency messages among millions of followers. Some of the high-profile accounts used to distribute the scam were Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Apple, Uber, Wendy’s, several cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, KuCoin and Gemini, and the CoinDesk news site and other top crypto accounts. There is a lot we still do not know, including full damage or actual intent. However, some cybersecurity experts speculate this was a possible diversionary tactic – given the actor seems to have acquired full access to Twitter’s administration panel, they could have done far greater damage. The investigation is underway, along with a call out from U.S. Senator Josh Hawley demanding more answers given the widespread reliance on the social media giant’s platform. Read more about the Twitter crypto scam at TripWire