Last week, some of the most prominent people around the globe had their Twitter accounts simultaneously hacked in an effort to steal cryptocurrency. Elliptic, one of the fastest growing crypto risk management firms is actively tracking the fraudulent activity through its blockchain monitoring software.
The Twitter hack
On Wednesday of last week, the Twitter platform became completely exposed when hackers managed to take control of verified accounts. According to reports, some of the most prominent Twitter accounts got hacked such as:
- Elon Musk
- Joe Biden
- Kim Kardashian West
- Jeff Bezos
- Bill Gates
- Barack Obama
- Wiz Khalifa
During the hack, all of these Twitter accounts had published tweets that were attempting to scam people out of their cryptocurrency. Tweets told everyone around the globe that if they sent Bitcoin to a specific BTC address, they would then receive double back. In order to do so, hackers utilized an internal Twitter admin tool to obtain access to these accounts. Despite the scam being exposed to everybody around the globe, the hackers only managed to steal around $120,000 USD, which is equivalent to around 12.5 BTC.
Elliptic Research Steps In
Elliptic, one of the leading crypto risk management outlets has continued to follow the fraudulent activity since it occurred. The company’s blockchain monitoring software is being deployed in order to detect the flow of funds. Following the Twitter hack, Elliptic issued the following statement:
“The very nature of blockchain technology on which cryptocurrency operates makes the real-time tracing of fund flows highly traceable, thereby enabling effective anti-money laundering (AML) controls to prevent the bad actors from laundering funds. In this well-coordinated and sophisticated attack on high profile Twitter accounts, the perpetrators used cryptocurrency to monetize software exploits. These very transactions are now being tracked by Elliptic crypto compliance monitoring software to the final destination of funds.”
Geographics
According to Elliptic, it is believed that half of the victims that fell for the scam are based in the United States. This is further supported by the fact that half of the payments from victims were initiated from US – based cryptocurrency exchanges. In addition, other victims seem to reside in Asia and Europe.
Elliptic Research Tools
Tracking Bitcoin is just one of the many cryptocurrencies that the firm oversees. According to a recent press release by the company, they have added tracking support for 87+ different cryptocurrencies. Elliptic has added the fraudulent addresses to their product line, and customers currently leveraging crypto transaction monitoring and crypto wallet screening have been fully updated. With the resources in place, it is difficult to believe that the hackers will be successful at off-loading their illicit funds. Elliptic continues to create transparency in the digital asset markets by tracking money laundering, terror financing, and other illegal operations.
In a recent report, Elliptic was also helping crypto exchanges monitor privacy coins. In the current digital asset landscape, privacy coins like ZEN & Zcash are extremely difficult to monitor. Highly regulated entities want to offer privacy coins to their clients, but have to manage the overall risk. By working with Elliptic, these companies believe that they can stay compliant by getting a better grasp on privacy coin infrastructure.
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