Twitter has been plagued for the last few weeks, with bad authors impersonating famous social media accounts to promote Bitcoin scams. And here, Google's official G Suite Twitter account has also fallen victim of this on going scheme.
The account which has more than 822 thousand followers at the time of hack, was promoting tweets, which directed users to a scam Bitcoin address as part of a "giveaway."
Earlier, U.S. retail giant Target has also failed victim to the same malicious tactic, in which the company confirmed a tweet linking to a malicious Bitcoin giveaway remained on its feed for approximately half an hour.
With this development, Google joins the long list of victims, which includes numerous retail giants, politicians, and government accounts.
This type of scam started with the creation of accounts intended to impersonate Elon Musk, before moving on to hacking larger companies like Target.
At the time, the scammers tried to instantly trick people by having their display name as "Elon Musk." Some of the reasons why Musk was targeted, is because he is a well-known figure in tech, an influencer, and an active user on Twitter.
When Twitter tried to curb the hacks by instantly locking those accounts, the scammers found ways to circumvent Twitter’s efforts.
They have then gained access to several verified accounts including those for Pantheon Books, India’s national disaster authority, and Fox’s discontinued TV show "Almost Human."
The strategy for all scams is identical: giving away a total of 10,000 Bitcoins (over $60 million) to participants who first send them between 0.1 and 0.2 Bitcoins ($600 to $1200).
Participants are promised to receive anywhere from 1 to 20 Bitcoins ($6000 – $120,000) in return.
In Google's case, it seems the scammers were also able to tap into Google’s Twitter advertising budget by promoting the tweet.
Twitter has released a statement to regarding the hacks, commenting that the company is investigating the issues, and focuses on improving how it handles cryptocurrency scams, and that it intends to continue to invest in tools to better handle spam in the future.
The malicious tweet from Google came only hours after the Target incident.
