Kanye West and Elon Musk‘s Twitter accounts hacked in bitcoin scam targeting celebrities

In an unprecedented move, Twitter locked down all verified accounts after dozens of high-profile people were hacked in a massive bitcoin scam.

Twitter locked down all verified accounts today after dozens of them were hacked in a widespread bitcoin scam.

Twitter confirmed this morning it was taking steps to fix the massive hack and advised its account holders they might not be able to tweet or reset their password until it had fixed the problem.

The accounts have since been restored and are able to tweet.

Non-verified accounts, those without a blue tick, were able to tweet during the shutdown.

You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 15, 2020

Telsa boss Elon Musk, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and rapper Kanye West were three of the many accounts hacked by scammers trying to dupe people into sending cryptocurrency bitcoin in the hope of doubling their money.

Twitter posts, which have been deleted, were fired off from an array of high-profile accounts telling people they had 30 minutes to send $US1,000 in bitcoin in order to be sent back twice as much.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former US President Barack Obama and his former Vice President Joe Biden, Kim Kardashian, billionaire Warren Buffett, Mike Bloomberg and tech accounts including Apple and Uber were also victims of the scam.

The scammers appeared to run two schemes at the same time, hacking a number of cryptocurrency Twitter accounts to spread a fake link.

Bitcoin, Ripple, CoinDesk, CoinBase and Binance were all hacked and sent out the same message.

“We have partnered with CryptoForHealth and are giving back 5000 BTC to the community,” all the companies tweeted, followed by a link to a website which has since been taken down.

“This is a SCAM, DO NOT participate!” Gemini cryptocurrency exchange co-founder Cameron Winklevoss warned in a tweet from his official account at Twitter.

“This is the same attack/takeover that other major crypto Twitter accounts are experiencing. Be vigilant!”

The fake tweet sent out from Jeff Bezos' account. Picture: Twitter

High-profile Democrat candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was also hit by the scam and issued a warning to her followers to not click on any links.

Comments and posts at Twitter indicated thousands of dollars in bitcoin may have been sent to the scammers’ digital account.

Hey everyone - there seems to be a large Twitter attack right now targeting large accounts.

Please be vigilant about any bitcoins scams and do NOT click on any suspicious links.

Just in case, if my account tweets any bizarre links related to cryptocurrency, do NOT click on it.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 15, 2020