It appears that Bitcoin scammers have hacked multiple major Twitter accounts, some with millions of followers, as a way to earn fraudulent funds. Twitter accounts for Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Uber, and more were all affected by the breach, which asked followers to send Bitcoin to a wallet, for which senders would receive "double" the amount back.
While the tweets were obviously a scam, that didn't stop some from sending money anyways. While the accounts seem to have been recovered now or blocked from posting, for the most part, the scammers still managed to raise around $104,000 during the breach, according to The Verge's Tom Warren. There have reportedly been more than 250 transactions to the Bitcoin wallet address so far, meaning hundreds of people have fallen for the scheme.
Even Apple fell victim to the attack, tweeting out a message nearly identical to the others that surfaced on Twitter. The tweets included the phrasing "only going on for the next 30 minutes" in multiple instances in an apparent attempt to create a sense of urgency. How so many fell for such an obvious scam is a mystery, as there were numerous red flags present.
Breaches such as these are one of the reasons that multi-factor identification, or 2FA, has become more common with internet applications. Companies like Epic Games have introduced multi-factor identification to combat security breaches, in the hopes of mitigating users that are vulnerable to such attacks. It's unclear if the hacked Twitter accounts were using such protections, though Twitter does offer the security feature and encourages users to take advantage of it.
Those that fell victim to the attack have likely lost their Bitcoin for good, though it seems likely that a criminal investigation will be launched due to the severity of the breach. That being said, it can be difficult to find the culprits in such attacks, so when or if those responsible will be caught is anyone's guess.
Hopefully, the accounts take better measures to protect themselves in the future. It's a bit strange that some many tech industry leaders were vulnerable to the attack, and the response to the breach will certainly be interesting to see.