Twitter Hackers Gained Access to Accounts Using Internal Tool

Several verified high profile Twitter accounts were hacked on Wednesday in a cryptocurrency scam that targeted accounts belonging to Apple, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, and more.

apple bitcoin hack
Twitter has said it doesn't believe any passwords were stolen in the hack, which forced the company to temporarily lock all verified accounts on the platform. While the company continues to investigate the attack, a new report suggests at least one Twitter employee and possibly more were involved in the takeover.

Motherboard was able to speak to two of the alleged hackers, who claim they paid a Twitter employee to gain access to the compromised accounts using an internal tool. This tool apparently allows staff to change the email address associated with accounts, and it was this ability that allowed the security breach to take place.

Twitter on Thursday said that a "coordinated social engineering attack" had targeted some of its staff as part of the hack.


Hackers posted tweets on the compromised accounts saying that if followers sent Bitcoin to a wallet address then they would receive double the amount in return. Many users clearly fell for the scam, which earned the hackers over $100,000 in the space of two hours.

Twitter believes approximately 130 accounts were targeted by the attackers in some way as part of the incident, but the company has not yet been able to confirm whether DMs were compromised. The FBI is also investigating how the breach was allowed to happen.

Tag: Twitter

Popular Stories

iPhone Top Left Hole Punch Face ID Feature Purple

iPhone 18 Pro Features Leaked in New Report, Including Under-Screen Face ID

Tuesday December 16, 2025 8:44 am PST by
Next year's iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be equipped with under-screen Face ID, and the front camera will be moved to the top-left corner of the screen, according to a new report from The Information's Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu. As a result of these changes, the report said the iPhone 18 Pro models will not have a pill-shaped Dynamic Island cutout at the top of the screen....
apple music chatgpt

ChatGPT's Apple Music Integration Is Now Live

Wednesday December 17, 2025 3:50 pm PST by
There's now a dedicated Apple Music app for ChatGPT, which allows ChatGPT to make music recommendations and build playlists. Apple Music can be added to ChatGPT through the Settings section in the Mac app, website, or iOS app. Apple Music is listed under the apps option, and connecting to it requires signing in with your Apple Account for authorization purposes. ChatGPT can be used to...
apple beta 26 lineup

Apple's 2026 and 2027 Product Roadmap: Foldable iPhone, iPhone 18 Pro, M5 Macs, and More

Tuesday December 16, 2025 4:42 pm PST by
There has been a whirlwind of rumors over the last few days, sourced from leaked internal software designed for the iPhone and the Mac, and news sites like The Information. Below, we have a quick recap of everything we've heard this week, which serves as a guide to Apple's product plans in 2026 and beyond. We've organized the info by likely release date, though there are some products that...
apple iphone air battery pack

Apple Aims to Boost Popularity of iPhone Air 2 in Two Ways

Tuesday December 16, 2025 11:06 am PST by
We have been covering iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 17e, and iPhone Fold details from The Information's report about future iPhone models, and next up is the iPhone Air 2. The report says that Apple aims to make the iPhone Air 2 more attractive in two ways. First, Apple is apparently considering adding a second rear camera to the device, which would resolve a key limitation. The current iPhone...
iOS 26

iOS 26.3 Beta 1 Features: What's New So Far

Monday December 15, 2025 4:23 pm PST by
Apple is testing iOS 26.3, the next version of iOS 26 that will launch around January. Since iOS 26.3's testing is happening over the holidays, it is a smaller update with fewer features than we've seen in prior betas. We've rounded up what's new so far, and we'll add to our list with subsequent betas if we come across any other features. Transfer to Android Apple is making it simpler...
Apple Logo Top Half

Early iOS 26 Software Leak Uncovers Dozens of Upcoming Apple Features

Monday December 15, 2025 3:05 pm PST by
Software from an iPhone prototype running an early build of iOS 26 leaked last week, giving us a glimpse at future Apple devices and iOS features. We recapped device codenames in our prior article, and now we have a list of some of the most notable feature flags that were found in the software code. In some cases, it's obvious what the feature flags are referring to, while some are more...
apple beta 26 lineup

Apple Leak Confirms Work on Foldable iPhone, AirTag 2, and Dozens More Devices

Monday December 15, 2025 2:05 pm PST by
Last week, details about unreleased Apple devices and future iOS features were shared by Macworld. This week, we learned where the information came from, plus we have more findings from the leak. As it turns out, an Apple prototype device running an early build of iOS 26 was sold, and the person who bought it shared the software. The OS has a version number of 23A5234w, and the first...
a15 chip

Apple Tested a MacBook With the A15 Chip

Wednesday December 17, 2025 7:19 am PST by
An internal Apple kernel debug kit suggests Apple has tested a MacBook with the A15 chip, alongside a separate A18 Pro-based MacBook that appears to be closer to a shippable product. The information comes from internal kernel debug kit files used by Apple engineers. The kit was accidentally released on Apple's website earlier this year, but it was quickly pulled after information started...
maxresdefault

Apple Developing iMac Pro With M5 Max Chip

Tuesday December 16, 2025 7:30 am PST by
Apple is developing a high-end iMac featuring the M5 Max chip, according to information from leaked internal software. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The finding comes from leaked kernel debug kit files used by Apple engineers. These kernel debug kit files enumerate unreleased Apple hardware by internal identifiers, such as codenames and platform names, and they...

Top Rated Comments

Mactendo Avatar
71 months ago

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.
What a way to say “some of our employees were involved in the hack”.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Unggoy Murderer Avatar
71 months ago
Putting all the blue ticks in Twitter jail for a half a day was pretty refreshing if I'm honest...
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rmariboe Avatar
71 months ago
I kinda feel if anyone's stupid and greedy enough to fall for something like this, that's a lesson well (l)earned.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
imom Avatar
71 months ago

$100,000 which regular folks thought was gonna go to a good cause. **** that employee.
Which good cause? It was just greed, gullibility and self-interest which made those 100 'donors' send their bitcoins.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
swm Avatar
71 months ago

anyone's stupid and greedy enough to fall for something like this
human stupidity >> size of the universe
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Anarchy99 Avatar
71 months ago
the sad thing about this scam is we know its either perpetrated by idiots who wanted money in a wallet thats basically useless because the BTC ledger is public so we can have idea when the money is spent and investigate where/what on. (not likely)

not to mention a few years ago, a single fake tweet "from the AP" cost billions in losses and the hack lasted like 3 minutes.

this hack lasted 2-3hours where the hackers/rogue employee had full account access to every blue check including DM's
there are easier ways to make money with that kind of info/access if that was the goal
which makes the Bitcoin scam look like a smokescreen or the US being put on notice by an adversary

which funny enough is the most comforting, we could already assume an enemy Gov't has the hacking resources as well as the means to bribe/coerce an employee.
but if it was truly just idiots out for money it shows what power idiots can access at twitter.

eitherway shows the security problems
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)