Massive Twitter Data Breach & Bitcoin Scam
Discussion
Some high profile accounts have been hacked & used to perpetrate a Bitcoin scam.
Vice article - Twitter Internal Panel Linked to Account Hijackings
It's suggested that an employee was targeted, which gave the hackers free reign to take over whatever accounts they liked.
I've seen a figure of $200k netted by the hackers, which seems light, but then again, what sort of person falls for a scam like this? Plus, how is Bitcoin not traceable?
Repercussions incoming, as the world's focus shifts for the next few days.
Vice article - Twitter Internal Panel Linked to Account Hijackings
It's suggested that an employee was targeted, which gave the hackers free reign to take over whatever accounts they liked.
I've seen a figure of $200k netted by the hackers, which seems light, but then again, what sort of person falls for a scam like this? Plus, how is Bitcoin not traceable?
Repercussions incoming, as the world's focus shifts for the next few days.
I guess someone like Musk is a bit eccentric so it’s possible he might do something like that...
But seriously... who falls for this sort of thing? Greedy naive people I guess, hoping to make a quick return. Do the simple maths and you can see quickly that it doesn’t add up, even if only a small fraction of his followers were to send money he’d still end up giving away hundreds of millions.
It’s a bit like those Facebook posts saying share to be in with a chance of winning one of millions of pounds of camper vans being given away.
But seriously... who falls for this sort of thing? Greedy naive people I guess, hoping to make a quick return. Do the simple maths and you can see quickly that it doesn’t add up, even if only a small fraction of his followers were to send money he’d still end up giving away hundreds of millions.
It’s a bit like those Facebook posts saying share to be in with a chance of winning one of millions of pounds of camper vans being given away.
I suspect plenty of people will have sent a fraction of a coin (a few Pence/Cents worth) to the account to see if it was real, the scammers might have even doubled up on some of them in the hope of a second larger deposit.
Perhaps there are enough Elon Musk zealots who wouldn't think critically enough and would bung him a few quid if asked?
The most interesting part is that it was someone at the Twitter corporate end that was hacked rather than the individual users.
Perhaps there are enough Elon Musk zealots who wouldn't think critically enough and would bung him a few quid if asked?
The most interesting part is that it was someone at the Twitter corporate end that was hacked rather than the individual users.
If only they'd stuck to people like Kanye West, trump, Elon Musk they might have got away with it for longer...
It was when they tried it with more sensible peoples accounts,...
Initial reports said they paid an admin for his account details. Motherboard now says it’s talked to hackers who say they paid a Twitter employee to change the email addresses of popular accounts using the internal tool so that they could then take control of them.
Twitter say otherwise
"We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools."
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/15/21326656/twitte...
It was when they tried it with more sensible peoples accounts,...
Initial reports said they paid an admin for his account details. Motherboard now says it’s talked to hackers who say they paid a Twitter employee to change the email addresses of popular accounts using the internal tool so that they could then take control of them.
Twitter say otherwise
"We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools."
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/15/21326656/twitte...
Smiler. said:
Plus, how is Bitcoin not traceable?
Here ya go:https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/bc1qxy2kgdy...
Follow the money.
CzechItOut said:
Wow, can't believe there are so many you fall for it. It takes some technical skills to procure and send BTC compared to normal payment methods so I'm surprised by this. I suppose greed sometimes overrides common sense.There was a scam on my FB feed where a fake Tesco account was setup with pictures of TVs in a warehouse. Apparently those stock will be disposed and anyone who sends over details will be in the run of receiving this FOC. Quite convincing as well.
Byker28i said:
Twitter say otherwise
"We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools."
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/15/21326656/twitte...
They best change their system so employees can't log with their pet's name. "We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools."
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/15/21326656/twitte...
anxious_ant said:
There was a scam on my FB feed where a fake Tesco account was setup with pictures of TVs in a warehouse. Apparently those stock will be disposed and anyone who sends over details will be in the run of receiving this FOC. Quite convincing as well.
Someone here did it with an expensive bike brand being sold very cheap - he said he thought it was some kind of Coronavirus blow-out sale.
What amazes me with this is to own bitcoin and send it to a wallet you need some level of intelligence (its quite low but not say as simple as giving someone a £1 in the street). So to go to the trouble of doing this and not think its a scam is mind boggling.
But I assume some sent a small amount testing to see if rather than a scam it was some ofher sort of special event. Who knows still pretty dumb and BTC and Alt coin prices all down today on back of this news.
But I assume some sent a small amount testing to see if rather than a scam it was some ofher sort of special event. Who knows still pretty dumb and BTC and Alt coin prices all down today on back of this news.
It was an impressive technical feat but a bit rubbish as crimes go, assuming the intention was to make money.
It's probably a good job these kind of hackers often aren't very imaginative, so didn't do anything worse with the power they had.
At first I was quite heartened by how few people fell for it considering the number of followers on the affected accounts, but it may actually be a reflection on how few Twitter accounts belong to real human beings.
It's probably a good job these kind of hackers often aren't very imaginative, so didn't do anything worse with the power they had.
At first I was quite heartened by how few people fell for it considering the number of followers on the affected accounts, but it may actually be a reflection on how few Twitter accounts belong to real human beings.
durbster said:
At first I was quite heartened by how few people fell for it considering the number of followers on the affected accounts, but it may actually be a reflection on how few Twitter accounts belong to real human beings.
Honestly I dont think the number of people on twitter who have bitcoin and are dumb enough to believe Elon or Bill or Apple would do this is pretty low. Given there has been bitcoin scam accounts everywhere for years on there. durbster said:
It was an impressive technical feat but a bit rubbish as crimes go, assuming the intention was to make money.
It's probably a good job these kind of hackers often aren't very imaginative, so didn't do anything worse with the power they had.
Yup. Bizarre. It's probably a good job these kind of hackers often aren't very imaginative, so didn't do anything worse with the power they had.
Twitter was their playground. They could've had Elon Musk tweeting that Tesla is crap and he's going to bomb all of his own factories. Shorting would've made unimaginable amounts for the few minutes that anyone believed it.
Instead they came up with a crappy scam that's been going since 2017 and only convinces the terminally stupid.
Byker28i said:
If only they'd stuck to people like Kanye West, trump, Elon Musk they might have got away with it for longer...
It was when they tried it with more sensible peoples accounts,...
When you put it like that, taking their money is probably one of the more tame things they could have got Trump's cult to do It was when they tried it with more sensible peoples accounts,...
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