Twitter Hacked

Accounts of prominent figures, including Obama and Gates, compromised in "catastrophic" Twitter hack.

08:54 22 July 2020

The official Twitter accounts of prominent figures including former US President Barack Obama and Billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were targeted in an apparent Bitcoin scam. 

 

The hack, which took place last week, saw official accounts requesting donations in the cryptocurrency. "Everyone is asking me to give back. You send $1,000, I send back $2,000", a tween from Mr Bill Gates' account said. 

 

Twitter has since responded to the issue saying that it was a "co-ordinated" attack targeting its employees "with access to internal systems and tools." 

 

In a series of tweets, the company said: "We know why [the hackers] used this access to take control of many highly visible (including verified) accounts and tweet on their behalf." 

 

The company has confirmed to taking "significant steps" to limit access of tools and internal systems and has temporarily blocked users from tweeting Bitcoin wallet addresses. 

 

In a tweet, Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, added: "Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened." 

 

Meanwhile, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre has confirmed that it had reached out to the tech firm. In a statement, the organisation said: "While this appears to be an attack on the company rather than individual users, we would urge people to treat requests for money or sensitive information on social media with extreme caution."