Twitter Accounts Hacked for Bitcoin by a Fake Elon Musk

bitcoin, cryptocurrency, Cyber Security, Elon Musk, Hackers, Hacking, Security, Twitter hack, , , ,
27
Nov 2018

Bitcoin remains a lucrative cryptocurrency and hackers are keen to cash in on it. And they’ve now scammed $180k in one day through hacking Twitter accounts.

With around 336 million active users, Twitter is one of the most popular social media sites and has attracted a number of authority figures in almost every niche you can think of. As a result, it’s fair to say that if your organization isn’t on Twitter then it needs to be on Twitter. It’s a fantastic marketing tool that can be used to engage customers, promote products and deliver instant marketing all over the world. However, it’s this level of interest in Twitter and the trust which users invest in official accounts that makes it susceptible to hackers.

Due to a recent hack of several major Twitter accounts, with large numbers of followers, hackers managed to deceive these followers by impersonating Elon Musk and requesting Bitcoin. Unbelievably, this approach was successful and the hackers managed to obtain around 28 Bitcoins valued at roughly $180,000. And this is all thanks to hacking successful Twitter accounts. As it’s likely that you run a Twitter account to support your business, we’re going to take a look at what happened and how you can protect your Twitter account.

What Did This Fake Elon Musk Do?

Elon Musk needs little introduction due to his fame which has been generated by co-founding PayPal and designing Tesla’s electric car range. Known as a man who can make money happen, he recently appeared on several major Twitter accounts such as Pantheon Books and UK clothing range Matalan. However, this wasn’t the real Elon Musk as these official Twitter accounts (complete with blue ticks) had simply had their user name changed and their profile picture replaced with a picture of Musk. These hacked accounts then promised that, as part of a Bitcoin giveaway, he would exchange a substantial amount of Bitcoin for a verification payment of anything from 0.1 to 3 Bitcoins.

The hackers were clever enough to even hack other Twitter accounts such as the National Disaster Management Authority of India and use these to send out fake ‘verification’ tweets that they had received multiple Bitcoins in exchange. Despite sounding too good to be true and requiring very little investigative work to discover that something wasn’t quite right, 392 transactions took place in just one day and allowed the hackers to make a small fortune very quickly. Although this behavior clearly violated Twitter’s guidelines, the anonymous nature of Bitcoin transactions means that there was relatively little risk for the hackers.

Protecting Your Twitter Account

It’s not known how the hackers behind the Elon Musk scam managed to breach so many official Twitter accounts, but it’s important that you ensure your Twitter account is secured. To help protect your organization’s Twitter account make sure you practice the following:

  • Keep your password secure through regular changes, long passwords and combination passwords
  • Twitter allows you to use two-factor authentication so that access is only granted to your account when a randomly generated code sent to a mobile device is entered
  • Try not to install third-party Twitter apps which request access to your Twitter account as it’s very difficult to monitor what they do with your data

If you can regularly follow these three steps then you’re going to significantly reduce the chances of losing control of your Twitter. And, remember, even if the hackers aren’t using your account to demand Bitcoin, losing control of your Twitter account, which is a crucial communication channel in modern business, could still be disastrous for your reputation and revenue.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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Office 365 Users: Hack Vulnerability

Security, Software, Uncategorized, , , ,
05
Jan 2014

OnsitePCSolution_Office_365_Vulnerability

Noam Liran, the chief software architect at Adallom, recently detected a flaw in Microsoft Office 365 which can easily expose account credentials through Word Documents that are hosted on a webserver which is currently invisible to existing anti-virus software.

What Specifically Is The Problem?

When a user downloads a document from a SharePoint server, the user is required to log in their account first – after which the server verifies the login credentials and then issues an authentication token. Liran discovered that he can use his own server to copy the responses which are sent from the sharepoint.com domain server.  At that point he can generate and fake the token. An attacker doing this can inject his code to connect to an untrusted web server to capture the user’s private Office 365 authentication token.  This allows the attacked to go to the user’s organization’s SharePoint site to access anything they want without the user knowing. According to Liran this is a perfect cyber crime in which the organization does not know they have been hit.

Microsoft has been working on this vulnerability, but at the time of this writing the backdoor still existed.

How would this work in the real world?:

  • The user will get an e-mail asking them to review a document or visit a webpage. This document could be coupons, someone’s CV or contract.
  • The user will click on the link and be redirected to Sharepoint which will ask to open the document in Word. If the user accepts, Word will request the document from the malicious webpage.
  • The malicious webpage in turn will ask Word for an Office 365 token. The malicious webpage gives Word a legitimate looking document in return. The attacker will then have the Office 365 token and access to the organization’s data.

OnsitePCSolution_Word_Document

This is a serious potential threat to organizations and companies that use Office 365. Important company data can be stolen without anyone knowing. The attacker could also monitor the data which could be confidential. The attacker also has access to delete the data.

What Can I Do To Protect My Business?

Until Microsoft comes up with a solid solution to this vulnerability, users should not open any unknown or suspicious looking emails.  They should also confirm from known senders to verify the authenticity of the email.  It is also important to absolutely avoid clicking on any unknown URLs and links or open attached documents in a file.

For further assistance, let your office IT support know about this vulnerability and stay ahead of a corporate data breach.

 

 

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