Twitter Suffered a Major Security Incident, With Many Celebrities Posting Phishing Tweets and Tens of Thousands of Accounts Being Suspended

At around 4 p.m. on July 15th, U.S. time, some celebrities on Twitter posted news about Bitcoin rebates, and it was later confirmed that their accounts had been hacked. They involved former President Obama, current Vice President Biden, Bill Gates, Musk, Kanye West, Bezos, Buffett and other politicians and celebrities.

According to reports from multiple US media, at around 4:00 PM on July 15th (Beijing time), a large number of political and business celebrities on Twitter posted phishing scam messages offering Bitcoin trading rebates. “I hope to give back to society during the epidemic. As long as you pay Bitcoin to the Bitcoin wallet address, I will return it to you double.”, and it was later confirmed that these Twitter accounts were hacked.

Although some of the tweets were discovered and deleted by the parties involved shortly after they were posted, the posting process by several celebrity accounts lasted for more than two hours.

Former President Obama, currentVice President Biden, Bill Gates, Musk, Kanye West, Buffett, Bezos, corporate accounts including Uber and Apple's official TwitterThey also announced news about Bitcoin trading rebates.

According to incomplete statistics from the US media, several netizens have mistakenly believed in this Bitcoin trading scam and sent a total of 11 Bitcoins to the address, currently worth US$101,000.

Emergency measures: Twitter disables publishing function and issues announcement

When this time was first released, Twitter did not directly issue an announcement, but first disabled the ability of many accounts to send new tweets.

Then two tweets were released earlier today Beijing time giving a brief explanation. It is believed that the cause of the accident is still under intensive investigation.

However, such a large-scale account intrusion is obviously not something that can be accomplished by social engineering alone. I believe the cause of this accident is even more serious.

Binance and Justin Sun were also implicated

It's not just celebrities and tech companies whose Twitter accounts were hacked. Hackers also targeted many cryptocurrencies and trading platforms.

Binance and its CEO’s Twitter account, as well as Justin Sun and his company Tron’s Twitter account, also posted phishing messages and have now been deleted.

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