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July 2020 "I Am Giving Back" Twitter Hack

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Updated Jul 16, 2020 at 01:48PM EDT by Zach.

Added Jul 15, 2020 at 05:48PM EDT by Jel.

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About

The July 2020 "I Am Giving Back" Twitter Hack refers to a mass hacking of verified Twitter accounts that occurred on July 15th, 2020. The hack scammed people by using accounts to tell their followers they were "giving back to the community," asking for Bitcoin donations and promising to double the amount sent to a provided address. The hack is Twitter's biggest security breach since its creation. The source of the hack stems from a Twitter employee who was allegedly convinced by the hackers to help them hijack the accounts by using an internal admin tool.

Origin

At around 3 p.m. Eastern time, hackers gained access to several Twitter accounts and began directing people to send Bitcoin to an address, promising to return double whatever amount was sent. The majority of these posts used similar language including the message, "I am giving back to the community due to COVID-19! All Bitcoin sent to my address below will be sent back doubled. If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000! Only doing this for the next 30 minutes! Enjoy." The hackers gained access to numerous accounts, including Kanye West's Twitter to send one such tweet (shown below), which has since been deleted.


ye @kanyewest I am giving back to my fans. All Bitcoin sent to my address below will be sent back doubled. l am only doing a maximum of $10,000.000. Only going on for 30 minutes! 5:03 PM · 7/15/20 · Twitter Web App 3,502 Retweets and comments 7,241 Likes

Developments

After the attacks began, #hacked and #twitterhacked trended on Twitter, as the hackers targeted celebrities, companies and cryptocurrency industry members. People and companies targeted include:


According to Blockchain Explorer,[1] the address linked in the tweets received its first recorded transaction at 3:03 p.m. Eastern time, with roughly 381 total transactions and 12.86811455 BTC ($117,271.37) received in less than 24 hours.

At 5:45 p.m., the Twitter Support[2] account tweeted that they were aware of the issue (shown below) and attempting to fix it. At around 6:15 p.m., Twitter[3] then disabled tweeting for all verified accounts.


Twitter Support O @TwitterSupport We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly. 5:45 PM · Jul 15, 2020 · Twitter Web App 10.2K Retweets and comments 16.1K Likes

At 10:38 p.m., Twitter Support[4] released another series of tweets(seen below) that provided information on how the hackers were able to gain access to the accounts and said, "We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools."


Twitter Support O @TwitterSupport We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools. 10:38 PM · Jul 15, 2020 · Twitter Web App 10.1K Retweets and comments 14.2K Likes Twitter Support O @TwitterSupport · 14h Replying to @TwitterSupport We know they used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf. We're looking into what other malicious activity they may have conducted or information they may have accessed and will share more here as we have it. D

According to Vice,[5] who said they spoke with hackers involved in the attack, "at least some of the accounts appear to have been compromised by changing the email address associated with them using the tool," which was provided by a Twitter insider. One of these sources stated in the article that, "We used a rep that literally done all the work for us."

Online Reactions and Parodies

On July 15th as the attacks swept the platform, several users also poked fun at the incident through jokes or memes, such as Twitter[6] user AramKurdii, who posted a Stonks meme as a reaction to Obama's hacked tweet. The meme (seen below) received nearly 700 likes.


@BarackObama · 2m I am giving back to my community due to Covid-19! Barack Obama All Bitcoin sent to my address below will be sent back doubled. If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000! bc1qxy2kgdygjrsqtzq2nOyrf2493p83kkfjhxOwih Only doing this for the next 30 minutes! Enjoy. Q 1K 27 2.3K O 3K Aram @AramKurdii Replying to @BarackObama BTC hackers at this moment: 0.9% 0.12% 560 286A 0 14763 2.286 156 stonks 0287 0.1204 234 0.1902 N/AY

Twitter[7] user bry_campbell also poked fun about the hacks at 5:45 p.m., receiving over 58,800 likes and 8,700 retweets and comments for his tweet (shown below).


Bryan @bry_campbell I knew he was hacked when I saw this tbh Jeff Bezos @JeffBezos Thave decided to give back to my community.

Some of the other accounts on Twitter who weren't affected by the attack also began posing parodies of the tweets with fake Bitcoin addresses. At 5:41 p.m., the Wendy's Twitter[8] account posted one such parody (seen below) with address "Dave444spicy245nuggets10piece," receiving over 14,800 likes and 3,800 retweets and comments. The eBaum's World Twitter[9] account similarly posted a parody with the address "youreadumbfuckifyoudsendmoneytorandomaccounts."


Wendy's @Wendys We are giving back to the Twitter community. All Tweets sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you tweet under this tweet we'll tweet back twice. Only doing this for 30 minutes. Dave444spicy245nuggets10piece PM Jul 15, 2020 - Twitter Web App 1.7K Retweets and comments 4.6K Likes

Search Interest

External References

[1] Blockchain – BTC Address

[2] Twitter – Twitter Support

[3] Twitter – Twitter Support

[4] Twitter – Twitter Support

[5] Vice – Hackers Convinced Twitter Employee

[6] Twitter – AramKurdii

[7] Twitter – bry_campbell

[8] Twitter – Wendys

[9] Twitter – ebaumsworld

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Top Comments

Tigrerojo
Tigrerojo

You manage to hack the main Social Media account of this many incredibly wealthy and influential people, and you waste it in a Nigerian-Prince-level dumbshit scam??

…I miss Anonymous; they were more fun…

+137
Nedhitis
Nedhitis

Website security today is held up by bubblegum stuck to paper. I am honestly impressed that it took this long for a site as big as Twitter to be on the list of sites to prove this point, and this is still tame compared to what other companies such as Sony have gotten.

+68

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