Twitter stated that the hackers appear to have targeted Twitter employees in order to gain “access to internal systems and tools” in order to reset user account email addresses. They were then able to gain access to multiple high-profile user accounts, where they tweeted a message falsely stating that the user was matching bitcoin donations to help COVID-19 relief efforts and a link to donate.
Among those compromised were billionaires like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, as well as other influential Twitter users like Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kim Kardashian West. Twitter disabled the ability to tweet on affected accounts while it investigated the issue. As of Wednesday evening, the scam website for collecting the bitcoin donations showed a total of $118,000 (13 bitcoins), although it is unknown whether this money was donated or if the hackers added it to make things seem more legitimate.
