Twitter accounts belonging to Joe Biden, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are among many other prominent accounts likely to have been compromised on Wednesday and posted tweets that appeared to promote a cryptocurrency scam.
The accounts, along with those of Kanye West, Jeff Bezos and Mike Bloomberg, posted similar tweets soliciting donations via Bitcoin to their verified profiles on Wednesday.
“Everyone is asking me to give back, and now is the time,” Gates’ tweet said, promising to double all payments to a Bitcoin address for the next 30 minutes.
Uber and Apple Twitter handle posted similar tweets with the scam soon after.
Cybersecurity news platform The Hacker News said the bitcoin account involved had already received nearly $55,000.
Twitter says it is investigating the issue. Twitter shares declined 2.3% post-market.
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 Support (@TwitterSupport) July 15, 2020
