The string of verified Twitter account hacks continues with Google’s G Suite the latest vehicle. Earlier this week, retail giant Target was was hacked, and on Wednesday (Nov14th), Google’s G Suite’s account fell victim to the same ploy. Hackers seem to be evolving, and this technique is their latest scheme to steal bitcoins from unsuspecting Twitter users.
In the past few months, hackers have been taking control of verified Twitter accounts all over the web. Once they gain the account, they pose as a famous person or company (such as Elon Musk) and tweet that they’re giving away Bitcoins to whomever sends Bitcoins to their address. Because BTC transactions are irreversible, the money is gone – forever.
G Suite, a product from Google for businesses, is the most recent account to be taken over by scammers. This seems to be the largest account hack yet – the hackers were able to broadcast their scam to all of G Suite’s 800,000 followers.
The screenshot below shows the tweet that was sent. As you can see, the tweet is very similar to the one sent by Elon Musk lookalike accounts earlier this month. In addition, they use a “tesla” website to try to lure people in.
Image From: TheNextWeb
Similar hacks have been going on for a while, but using a different strategy. Previously, scammers would comment under cryptocurrency personalities tweets pretending to be them, asking people to send in ETH. As the technique has become more well-known and may have stopped working, scammers are instead hijacking verified accounts to post publicly. Now, all they do is tweet out the message, promote the post, reach as many people as possible, and promise to give away bitcoins (BTC) to whomever sends in bitcoin to their address
Promoted Scams
It is important to note that the scammers are also sponsoring the posts, as shown by the “Promoted” label below the posts – a feature many might see as a failure in Twitter’s vetting standards.
