Several verified Twitter accounts oddly started flooding the replies of Elon Musk and his follower with bitcoin spam on Saturday . The evident hack come just hours before the Tesla CEO ’s much - talk about hosting gig onSaturday Night Live .
Fraud trackerMalware Hunter Teamshared a series of screenshots of verified Twitter accounts that appeared to be hijack in an endeavor to con Musk fanboys . These included official accounts for an Argentine politico , a Korean polite rights group , and a Paralympic athlete , among others .
In each case , the news report changed its name to “ SNL ” and switched its profile mental picture to match that ofthe official Saturday Night Live story . These altered accounts respond to Musk ’s tweets with prompts for users to “ join ” a virtual event by clicking a link to receive 5,000 bitcoin , worth a little over $ 295 million at the time .
Photo: Britta Pedersen (Getty Images)
The link leads to a post on Medium , which you could see a screenshot of below , from a user named Elon Musk that claims to be from Tesla HQ ’s marketing section . Beneath a film of Musk , which advertises a “ 5000 BTC game show , ” are links to a “ competitor ” website where users can supposedly bring in one of three cryptocurrencies — Bitcoin , Ether , or Dogecoin — for free .
The tie-in were all transgress by the time we delay it out , butBusiness Insiderseems to have had upright luck . On Saturday , it reported that the “ contender ” website let in a Tesla logo and requests for user to send “ from 0.02 to 5 BTC to the address below and get from .20 to 50 BTC back ! ”
When reached for comment on Saturday , a Twitter spokesperson said the company is looking into the matter . We ’ve also reach out to Malware Hunter Team and Tesla , though it should be take down that the latter has n’t said much to the press since itdissolved its public relations departmentlast October . Still , we ’ll update this blog if we see back .
Screenshot: SNLgives.com/Gizmodo
By Saturday good afternoon , many of the hijacked chronicle appeared to be back to normal , though some were ho-hum than others to modify their profiles back and scrub their post history . As of Saturday afternoon , Woods ’ profile characterization is still the SNL logo , and the ACRC’sreply historyshows several bitcoin spam posts . We ’ve screenshotted one below , which includes a call that substance abuser can earn 100 million Dogecoin by clicking the link .
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency souvenir that started out as a meme and has since become implausibly popular . Its value has shoot up nearly 25,000 % in the last six month concord toCNBC , no doubt fueled in part bythe WallStreetBets dramaand its Reddit - led investment funds fling . Musk , being the internet round that he is , has tweetedseveral shout - out to Dogecoinin recent weeks , generating even more ballyhoo and sending its value soaring .
However , even as these hijacked accounts give to normal , morecontinueto tonic up by the minute , according to Malware Hunter Team . Whoever these cyberpunk are , they seem determined to milk the hype around Musk ’s SNL debut for as long as they can .
Screenshot: Twitter/Gizmodo
Musk will host SNL tonight at 11:30 p.m. ET . you’re able to learn it onNBC ’s websiteif you have a cable login . For those of us who cut the cord , NBC is livestreaming the show internationally via YouTubehere .
BitcoinCryptocurrenciesDogecoinElon MuskMiley CyrusTechnologyX ( Twitter )
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