Twitter and Social networks are a very powerful way to market your business. This time, Twitter was compromised with a sophisticated hack that compromised “Target’s” Twitter account where scammers posted a fake promoted ad related to Bitcoin giveaway entitled “The biggest Crypto Giveaway in the world!” as shown below:
We giving 5000 Bitcoin (BTC) to all community!
We present cryptocurrency payments for your purchases in our store, and want to celebrate this event with all users!We organize the biggest crypto-giveaway in world!
Participate in giveaway – m-crypto.me
But now that tweet has been deleted by Target and even they confirmed the hack and updated with a new tweet that –
“Early this morning, our Twitter account was inappropriately accessed. The access lasted for approx. half an hour & one fake tweet was posted during that time about a bitcoin scam. We have regained control of the account, are in close contact with Twitter & are investigating now.”
Early this morning, our Twitter account was inappropriately accessed. The access lasted for approx. half an hour & one fake tweet was posted during that time about a bitcoin scam. We have regained control of the account, are in close contact with Twitter & are investigating now.
— Target (@Target) November 13, 2018
Online social networks like Facebook or Twitter have become powerful information diffusion platforms as they have attracted hundreds of millions of users. The possibility of reaching millions of users within these networks not only attracted standard users, but also cyber-criminals who abuse the networks by spreading spam just like the above.
This is accomplished by either creating fake accounts, bots, cyborgs or by hacking and compromising accounts. Compromised accounts are subsequently used to spread spam in the name of their legitimate owner.
Target is not only the victim, “Washington Examiner” twitter account was also hacked last month with message “Trump is going to hell“.
Even the domain i.e. m-crypto.me now shows a google malware warning which clearly seems that something is phishy around it.
There are so many other domains which runs same fake bitcoin scam campaign, view here.
Similarly, there are many other twitter verified accounts i.e. Toledo Athletics, The Bod Shop which have been compromised and are victimized by same bitcoin scam. This has been going on for months and twitter has done nothing to stop it.
