Alphabet Inc’s (NYSE:GOOGL) Google G Suite is the latest victim of a high-profile twitter account hacking aimed at advertising fraudulent Bitcoin (BTC-USD) giveaways. The scammers targeted the company’s close to a million followers and possibly more who would receive the fake news through sharing.
Bitcoin giveaway scam
The message that lasted for about 10 minutes before being pulled down appealed to followers to take part in a ten thousand Bitcoin giveaway while lying that Google’s G Suite accepted payment for its products and services in cryptocurrency.
Confirming the incident to Business Insider, Google’s spokesperson stated that “This morning an unauthorized promoted tweet was shared from the G Suite account. We removed the tweet and are investigating with Twitter now.”
Retail Giant among other prominent individuals targeted
The giant US retail store, Target, also suffered a security breach on its twitter handle promoting the same 10,000 bitcoin giveaway scam.
The scammers have been targeting verified high-profile twitter accounts to promote the cryptocurrency scam. Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk has been at the center of these scams. In recent cases the scammers have hacked multiple verified twitter accounts, swapping their profile pictures with Elon Musk’s and changing the names as well.
The fake Elon Musk accounts would then be used to promote the bitcoin giveaway scam. One account made away with almost $170,000 worth of cryptos. The scammers trick innocent users to send them their own Bitcoins through questionable links as part of the participation in the giveaway.
Google’s G Suite twitter account stands as the biggest high-profile account to be hacked, so far. This was a daring attempt to promote the fake giveaways considering that in the beginning of June, Google banned all cryptocurrency-related ads. Google’s actions were meant to prevent its users from falling victims of fraudulent crypto advertisements.
Google has since then reconsidered the terms of the ban. In September, the company permitted legit cryptocurrencies businesses targeting US and Japan audiences to advertise on its platforms.
Twitter on its part is actively exploring new security protocols to mitigate the bitcoin giveaway scams along with other scams as well.
