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

Apple Watch Ultra Night Mode Screen

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Launching Later This Year With Two Key Upgrades

Wednesday July 2, 2025 1:13 pm PDT by
The long wait for an Apple Watch Ultra 3 appears to be nearly over, and it is rumored to feature both satellite connectivity and 5G support. Apple Watch Ultra's existing Night Mode In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is on track to launch this year with "significant" new features, including satellite connectivity, which would let you...
iPhone 17 Pro in Hand Feature Lowgo

iPhone 17 Pro Max Battery Capacity Leaked

Thursday July 3, 2025 5:40 am PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature the biggest ever battery in an iPhone, according to the Weibo leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post, the leaker listed the battery capacities of the iPhone 11 Pro Max through to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and added that the iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature a battery capacity of 5,000mAh: iPhone 11 Pro Max: 3,969mAh iPhone 12 Pro Max: 3,687mAh...
iPhone 17 Pro Lower Logo Magsafe

iPhone 17 Pro's New MagSafe Design Revealed in Leaked Photo

Wednesday July 2, 2025 8:37 am PDT by
The upcoming iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are rumored to have a slightly different MagSafe magnet layout compared to existing iPhone models, and a leaked photo has offered a closer look at the supposed new design. The leaker Majin Bu today shared a photo of alleged MagSafe magnet arrays for third-party iPhone 17 Pro cases. On existing iPhone models with MagSafe, the magnets form a...
Wi Fi WiFi General Feature

iOS 26 Adds a Useful New Wi-Fi Feature to Your iPhone

Wednesday July 2, 2025 6:36 am PDT by
iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 add a smaller yet useful Wi-Fi feature to iPhones and iPads. As spotted by Creative Strategies analyst Max Weinbach, sign-in details for captive Wi-Fi networks are now synced across iPhones and iPads running iOS 26 and iPadOS 26. For example, while Weinbach was staying at a Hilton hotel, his iPhone prompted him to fill in Wi-Fi details from his iPad that was already...
airpods pro 2

AirPods Pro 3 to Help Maintain Apple's Place in Earbud Market Amid Increasing Low-Cost Competition

Thursday July 3, 2025 7:25 am PDT by
Apple's position as the dominant force in the global true wireless stereo (TWS) earbud market is expected to continue through 2025, according to Counterpoint Research. The forecast outlines a 3% year-over-year increase in global TWS unit shipments for 2025, signaling a transition from rapid growth to a more mature phase for the category. While Apple is set to remain the leading brand by...
iOS 18

Apple Releases Second iOS 18.6 Public Beta

Tuesday July 1, 2025 10:19 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 updates to public beta testers, with the betas coming just a day after Apple provided the betas to developers. Apple has also released a second beta of macOS Sequoia 15.6. Testers who have signed up for beta updates through Apple's beta site can download iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 from the Settings app on a compatible...
apple silicon mac lineup 2024 feature purple m5

Apple's Upcoming Macs Listed in New Report

Thursday July 3, 2025 9:09 am PDT by
AppleInsider's Marko Zivkovic today shared a list of alleged identifiers for future Mac models, which should roll out over the next year or so. The report does not reveal anything too surprising, but it does serve as further evidence that Apple is seemingly working on new models of every Mac, including the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro. Apple is...

Top Rated Comments

Mactendo Avatar
65 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
65 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
65 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
65 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
65 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
65 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)