Kanye West, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and more reportedly hacked by cryptocurrency scammers

Hackers have targeted Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Kanye West, among other high-profile Twitter users, by using their accounts to promise to “double” payments to a Bitcoin account.

As per reports, scammers  were  able to manipulate accounts belonging to Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and former New York City mayor and billionaire media figure Mike Bloomberg, among others.

 The messages were all quickly deleted, but similar messages continued to appear across Twitter, indicating a significant breach within the platform, as the hackers reportedly attracted thousands of dollars in payments.

“We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter,” the platform announced on its Support account more than an hour after the initial hacks. “We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly.”

The first messages reportedly appeared on the Tesla CEO’s account on Wednesday: ”I’m feeling generous because of Covid-19. I’ll double any BTC payment sent to my BTC address for the next hour. Good luck, and stay safe out there!”

The message was deleted and replaced with another similar message: “Feeling greatful [sic], doubling all payments to my BTC address!”

“You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000,” the message said.

“Everyone is asking me to give back, and now is the time,” said a message on the Microsoft founder’s Twitter page, linking to a bitcoin address and promising to ”double” all payments “for the next 30 minutes.”

A statement from a spokesperson for Mr Gates’ said that Twitter is “aware and working to restore” his account.

Similar messages appeared on several other accounts, including Apple, Uber, Square’s Cash App and the Winklevoss’ Gemini.