Andrew Kerr on July 15, 2020
The Twitter accounts for former Vice President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama were compromised Wednesday afternoon by hackers pushing a bitcoin scheme amid a wide-scale attack on the social media platform.
“I am giving back to the community,” a now-deleted tweet posted on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s account read. “All bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000.”
Tweet posted to Joe Biden’s account Wednesday afternoon. Bitcoin address redacted. (Twitter / Screenshot)
A nearly identical tweet was posted to Obama’s personal Twitter account Wednesday afternoon.
Similar tweets were posted to the accounts of Biden’s former rival, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Kanye West, Elon Musk, Uber and other major figures.
The bitcoin address linked in the tweets has racked up at least $100,000, according to NBC News, citing a public register of bitcoin transactions.
Twitter spokeswoman Aly Pavela told NBC News it was aware of the issue and was currently looking into the issue.
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