Crooks post crypto-currency scams from verified Twitter account, again
Crypto-currency crooks have once again been posting their scams on Twitter, using verified Twitter accounts.
Nearly every Twitter user will know what Twitter’s ‘blue tick‘ means. It shows, of course, that a particular Twitter account has been verified by Twitter as being the legitimate account of the person in question, be it a company, celebrity, blogger, journalist or anyone else deemed worthy enough of a blue tick by Twitter.
It’s often the way we know that tweets are legitimate. So if an account called Elon Musk starts posting suspicious links, and the account lacks the blue tick, we can be pretty sure it’s just an imposter account, and the links posted from it probably shouldn’t be trusted.
However, if crooks find a way of obtaining that coveted blue verification tick, then things can get a little more confusing.
Sponsored Content. Continued below...
Enter into the fray Antoine Bethea, a professional American Football player. Bethea, like many sporting professionals, has a verified Twitter account. However at some point, his account was compromised and fell into the hands of crooks. How? It’s not known, but it’s likely he fell for a phishing scam that asked him to enter his details into a spoof website (and he didn’t have two-step authenticated enabled!)
Armed with a verified Twitter account under their control, the crooks changed the name of the account from Bethea’s to Elon Musk, and started tweeting out the below post –
It’s easy to see why someone who stumbles upon one of these tweets (often posted as replies to tweets by President Trump and Elon Musk’s real account) may think it’s a real tweet by the creator of Tesla and Space X and click through. The link leads to a site that simply steals Bitcoin by promising up to 100 Bitcoin in return for one 1 Bitcoin.
There are still tell-tale signs though, namely the user handle that appears after the account name. Musk’s real account is @elonmusk, while this imposter account still has Bethea’s user handle, @ABethea41.
Sponsored Content. Continued below...
Twitter have changed the name back at the time of writing and removed offending tweets.
Additionally, Elon Musk’s real account really was locked down by Twitter recently due to security precautions. Musk claims it happened because of a real tweet he sent, though there is the possibility that Twitter staff may have become confused by the fake “verified” tweets and locked down his real account as a result.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. We’ve previously reported on an instance where crooks took over the verified Twitter account of a UK rugby player and started posting crytp-currency scams masquerading as President Trump.
Keep up-to-date with all the latest cybersecurity threats and our tips to stay safe online. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Continued below...
Thanks for reading! But before you go… as part of our latest series of articles on how to earn a little extra cash using the Internet (without getting scammed) we have been looking into how you can earn gift vouchers (like Amazon vouchers) using reward-per-action websites such as SwagBucks. If you are interested we even have our own sign-up code to get you started. Want to learn more? We discuss it here. (Or you can just sign-up here and use code Nonsense70SB when registering.)
Become a Facebook Supporter. For 0.99p (~$1.30) a month you can become a Facebook fan, meaning you get an optional Supporter Badge when you comment on our Facebook posts, as well as discounts on our merchandise. You can subscribe here (cancel anytime.)
