Target’s Twitter account with over 2 million followers was hacked and used for Bitcoin scam

Early yesterday morning, target’s twitter account was hacked with over 2 million followers and used for Bitcoin scam that has been trending over the past few months.

The scammers started by creating fake accounts imitating Elon Musk, an act that is against Twitter’s Terms of Service. The accounts would share fraudulent links under Musk’s tweets that asked users to send a little amount of bitcoin in order to receive a larger amount. It’s a complicated method that has been a profitable endeavor, making the hackers over $37,000 in cryptocurrency within a few hours, according to TechCrunch.

According to a statement from Target to The Verge, “The hacking process on the target’s twitter account last for half an hour and one fake post was tweeted during that time referring to a bitcoin scam.” “We are in close contact with Twitter, have deleted the tweet and have locked the account while we investigate further.”

Twitter revived up its efforts in July to stop these scams by automatically locking any unverified accounts that changed their display names to “Elon Musk.” This caused the scammers to turn their goal to hacking in other to avoid their accounts locked. They were able to impersonate Elon Musk by hacking verified accounts with no fear of being locked out, and the scam is even more trusted with the little blue checkmark next to the familiar name.

And now @Target.

This isn't just Target's problem. This is @Twitter's problem. They clearly haven't got a handle on these cryptocurrency scams.

As previously discussed here: https://t.co/0l44PVFPI9 pic.twitter.com/81i6GIv3qs

— Graham Cluley (@gcluley) November 13, 2018

According to Target, the account was briefly hacked, and in that time, scammers were able to come up with a tweet and the link that then approved as an advert by Twitter. With the help of the screenshot to prove that the tweet was promoted, it shows that the scammer was able to make it past the Twitter team that managed ads. However, Twitter has not responded to a request for comment.

Although, Target is the only latest example of this scam, or maybe the one with the largest followers. Other influential users like Rep Frank Pallone (D-NJ), also had their accounts hacked for use in this scam. Pallone’s campaign account was altered just a day before the 2018 midterm elections. His account did not sponsor any ads, but others like Capgemini Australia, Pathe Films, and Pantheon Books had ads for this scam approved as well.

Frank Pallone is the ranking member of the house energy and commerce committee, the jurisdiction of which includes oversight of telecommunications and the internet https://t.co/WgIw5lSLn2

— rat king (@MikeIsaac) November 5, 2018

This scam could be simply dealt with by requiring all verified users to secure their accounts with the two-factor authentication, but Twitter is yet to ask any users to do so as of right now. It’s likely that these hacks will continue if Twitter did not take any action, and many more people will be scammed into handing over their cryptocurrency to this scammer.

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Twitter deleted thousands of accounts that tried to discourage voters from voting

Twitter was reportedly removed thousands of accounts on its platform posting messages, trying to dissuade and discourage the democrats voters from voting in the next week election.

According to the company, Up to 10,000 accounts were removed across late September and early October after they were first raised by the staff at the Democratic Party. “We removed a series of accounts for engaging in attempts to share disinformation in an automated fashion, which violate our policies”. “We stopped it quickly and at its source,” said by a Twitter spokesperson in an email to TechCrunch.

However, the company has not yet disclosed samples of the kind of accounts it deleted, or say who or what might have been behind the activity.

These accounts pretend to be Democrats and try to convince major demographics to stay in their home and not vote, most likely as an attempt to shake the results in the major election battleground, according to Reuters, which first reported the news.

A request for comment from a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee outside its business hours was rejected.

The deletion of accounts is just a minor issue from a wider threats facing Twitter. The giant company also deleted up to 1.2 millionaccounts for sharing and promoting terrorist content earlier this year. Also in May, Twitter removed a number of 10 million accounts each week for sending malicious and automated messages.

According to Twitter’s latest earning report in July, it has 335 million monthly active users. But the company has faced criticism from lawmakers for not going extra miles to quickly remove content that violates its rules or spreads misleading information and false news.

With just a few days before the U.S. midterm election, this quick action is likely to raise further concern that Twitter did not automatically detect the malicious accounts.

Unlike Facebook, which recently blocked content that tried to discourage voters with fake and misleading information, Twitter does not have a strict policy on the spread of misleading information in the run-up to election season. Instead, Twitter said that its “open and real-time nature” is a “powerful antidote to the spreading of all types of fake news,” last year.

However, researchers have been critical of that method. Research published last month show that more than 700,000 accounts that were active during the 2016 presidential election are still in use till today, publishing a million of tweets every day.

According to a Twitter spokesperson, for this year election, the company has “established open lines of communication and direct, easy escalation paths for state election officials, Homeland Security, and campaign organizations from both major parties to help us enforce our policies vigorously and protect conversational health on our service.”

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