Twitter accounts of several prominent figures, adding Kanye West, Elon Musk and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, were hacked Wednesday and issued a similar message that caused everyone to say their social media accounts had been compromised.
According to Hollywood Reporter, all hacked accounts have posted a message selling a cryptocurrency scam. The message also included a Bitcoin wallet and suggested users to send them money. The message also indicated that the amount sent would be doubled.
Twitter soon learned about the challenge and promptly issued a statement. The social media site revealed that it was “aware” of the security incident and that it was doing everything possible to “fix it.” The company also noted that users whose accounts have been compromised will not be able to “tweet” or “reset” their passwords while reviewing the full situation.
“We are aware of a security incident affecting Twitter accounts. We are reading and taking steps to fix it. We will inform everyone shortly,” the company wrote on the microblog site.
Recently, the maximum number of accounts can be tweeted again. However, the company has made it clear that its (pirated accounts) tweeting ability can “come and go” until the challenge is fully resolved.
“Most accounts can tweet again. As we continue to work on a solution, this function may appear and disappear. We are working to get things back to general as temporarily as possible,” Twitter wrote.
In addition to the names mentioned above, the Twitter accounts of former U.S. President Barack Obama, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates were hacked.
Official accounts of corporations such as Uber and Apple have also been compromised.
In December 2019, Mariah Carey’s Twitter account also hacked an unnamed user on New Year’s Eve and posted many inappropriate tweets.
Kanye West was noted in New York in November 2019. Picture: AFP / Angela Weiss