The CEO and co-founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, for the second time has become a victim of growing hacking incidents on Twitter. His account was hacked and the perpetrator started promising free Bitcoin (BTC) and also Ethereum (ETH) to Elon’s formidable 22 million followers. The impersonator, with a verified Twitter account, took advantage of the famous magnate’s philosophical tweets. The hacker joined the thread line and began to offer cryptocurrency tips and also built on real Musk’s promise to “take TESLA private.” As if that’s not enough, he went on to say that the planned reorganization will see the addition of Bitcoin and Ethereum payment methods as “one of the steps in moving forward.”
Some users even fell for it, as already one was accusing Musk of stealing from the people. On the other hand, many users started to question how a fake Musk was able to obtain a Twitter-verified status. Impersonation by hackers with Twitter-verified status isn’t really something new considering the number of high-profile cryptocurrency celebrities. They include the likes of Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), and the eccentric cybersecurity expert John McAfee. Still, on Twitter this February, we saw the a fake Elon Musk tweet an announcement that he was giving out 400 ETH to fans.
However, through a statement to Verge, the social media company assured its users that better defense frameworks will be implemented to protect profiles. An excerpt read, “We’re aware of this form of manipulation and are proactively implementing a number of signals. This is to prevent these types of accounts from engaging with others in a deceptive manner.”
Currently, there are over a hundred fake Twitter accounts that promise to send cryptocurrencies to dupe people. More importantly, these accounts have managed to siphon off as much as $58,110 USD in a day. Unsurprisingly, such cases are on the rise. The hackers lure victims by impersonating high-profile accounts. Then, they urge victims to send a small number of cryptocurrency units to their wallet address. Many people fall for this as the hackers promise them high yields at a later date.
Apparently, Twitter users can only safeguard themselves from such scams by staying doubtful of any account promising free cryptocurrency.
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