A series of high-profile Twitter accounts have been hacked by scammers impersonating as Tesla boss Elon Musk to initiate a bitcoin scam. Using the fake sites hackers have earned over 28 bitcoins or approximately $180,000 in a single day.
The celebrities whose verified Twitter accounts were taken over by attackers include British fashion retailer Matalan, US publisher Pantheon Books, film producer Pathe UK, and independent record label Marathon Artists.
The tweet urged users to take part in a digital currency fair with investing a small amount of Bitcoin in order to earn more.
"I'm giving 10 000 Bitcoin (BTC) to all community!
I left the post of director of Tesla, thank you all for your support!
I decided to make the biggest crypto-giveaway in the world, for all my readers who use Bitcoin," read the tweet by attackers.
Using an account with Twitter's a blue tick, makes the accounts look like a legitimate one and is used to trick the reader into believing it as an official one.
"Being able to hijack verified accounts is a potential goldmine for crypto scammers banking on the visibility of the Tesla CEO," Chris Boyd, lead malware intelligence at Malwarebytes, told ZDNet.
"Verified entities don't need any extra requirements to change basic profile details such as name or avatar, and once the account is compromised you can then start pushing rogue ads under the guise of Elon".
The sites that promoted these fake profiles include musk[.]plus, musk[.]fund, and spacex[.]plus. It urges all users to send .1 or 3 BTC to the address given below in order to get 1-30 times in bitcoins back.
"To verify your address, send from 0.1 to 3 BTC to the address below and get from 1 to 30 BTC back!
BONUS: Addresses with 0.30 BTC or more sent, gets additional +200% back!
Payment Address
You can send BTC to the following address.
1KAGE12gtYVfizicQSDQmnPHYfA29bu8Da
Waiting for your payment...
As soon as we receive your transaction, the outgoing transaction will be processed to your address."
Once the victims sent the money, they never received any Bitcoin.
