FBI investigating Twitter hack

The FBI has initiated an inquiry into the hacking of several prominent Twitter accounts in what appeared to be a bitcoin scam, the agency confirmed to The Hill on Thursday.

“The FBI is investigating the incident involving several Twitter accounts belonging to high profile individuals that occurred on July 15, 2020,”  the bureau’s San Francisco division said in a statement. “At this time, the accounts appear to have been compromised in order to perpetuate cryptocurrency fraud.”

Multiple high-profile Twitter accounts were compromised Wednesday evening, posting similar messages promising to double bitcoin payments with a link to a bitcoin wallet which got more than $117,000 put into it.

Former President Obama, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Kim Kardashian West were among the accounts compromised.

Other major accounts that were hacked include companies such as Uber, Square’s Cash App and Apple.

Twitter revealed late Wednesday night that the episode appeared to be “a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) directed state agencies to investigate the incident on Thursday.

“The Twitter hack and widespread takeover of verified Twitter accounts is deeply troubling and raises concerns about the cybersecurity of our communications systems, which are critical as we approach the upcoming presidential election,” he said in a statement.

Updated at 3 p.m.