On Wednesday, several verified Twitter accounts were hacked, including Keeping Up With The Kardashians star Kim Kardashian West and her husband, Kanye West. The attacks were specifically targeted to steal bitcoin currency.
Kim and Kanye have been all over the news since Kanye’s July 4 tweet announcing that he’ll be running for president. The likelihood of Kanye actually running for president has been questioned, and reports differ as to whether he submitted the required paperwork. Although Kim seemed to be supportive, retweeting Kanye’s original tweet with an American flag emoji, reports have emerged claiming that the Kardashian family is concerned for Kanye’s mental health. He was said to be having a bipolar episode when he wrote the tweet. Since Kanye has been an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, there have also been theories that he is trying to split the Democratic vote and get Trump re-elected.
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While Kanye’s bid for the presidency is still up in the air, he also had to deal with the hacking of his Twitter account. The hackings began with fake tweets sent out from various verified accounts, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, and Jeff Bezos. Kim’s account tweeted, “Feeling nice! All BTC sent to me will be sent back doubled, enjoy” with a long string of letters and numbers (via Cosmopolitan). Similar messages were sent from all hacked accounts. Those targeted in the mass hacking are among the richest people in the world. Reports that Kim is about to become a billionaire have been circulating for the past few weeks, so it’s unsurprising that she was targeted. Corporate accounts were also targeted, including Apple and Uber. “Due to Covid-19, we are giving back $10,000,000 in Bitcoin! All payments sent to our address below will be sent back doubled,” read a tweet from the Uber account.
Twitter’s support team began an investigation shortly after the Tweets appeared and decided to suspend all verified accounts. This meant they limited the “ability to Tweet, reset your password, and some other account functionalities.” Twitter Support also tweeted out that they are “looking into what other malicious activity [the hackers] may have conducted.”
The FBI is launching their own investigation into the hackings, which led to a rumor that Russian intelligence may have been behind the cyber attacks. Jack Dorsey, creator of Twitter, tweeted that it was a “tough day for us at Twitter.” He continued, “We’re diagnosing everything and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened.” Kim has yet to comment on the hacking, but we’ll surely hear from her soon.
Source: Cosmopolitan, Twitter Support
