Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are among many prominent US figures targeted by hackers on Twitter in an apparent Bitcoin scam.
Twitter briefly blocked access to all verified accounts, and said that some of its own employees with access to internal system were targeted.The official accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kanye West also requested donations in the cryptocurrency.
Twitter accounts of several prominent verified users were hacked in a widespread Bitcoin scam early Thursday. The official accounts of former US President Barack Obama, rapper Kanye West and his wife Kim Kardashian, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, media tycoon Mike Bloomberg, along with major brands such as Apple and Uber, were among many others which fell victim to the hack. These accounts sent out tweets trying to dupe people into donating money in Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Twitter had briefly blocked access to all verified accounts (marked with blue tick) and are presently investigating into the matter.

Twitter hack: What happened

The mysterious tweets were marked by a similar message, asking people to donate Bitcoins, promising double returns. Twitter has removed all such posts since. A post from Bill Gates' account read, “Everyone is asking me to give back. You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.” A similar message was posted from several other prominent accounts as well, specifying that the double return offer would last for 30 minutes.

All of the tweets shared one of three Bitcoin addresses that apparently belonged to an organisation called CryptoForHealth. According to a BBC report , the web address where some of the tweets redirected users to was registered by a cyber-attacker with the email address ‘mkworth5@gmail.com' and the profile name Anthony Elias. The report also suggests that cryptoforhealth is a registered handle on Instagram, who profile description read, “It was us.” The website cannot be reached now.

Instagram message

The BBC can report from a security source that a web address - cryptoforhealth.com - to which some hacked tweets directed users was registered by a cyber-attacker using the email address mkeyworth5@gmail.com.

The name "Anthony Elias" was used to register the website, but may be a pseudonym - it appears to be a play on "an alias".

Cryptoforhealth is also a registered user name on Instagram, apparently set up contemporaneously to the hack.