Hackers promoted a fake Bitcoin and Ethereum giveaway through the hacked Twitter account of investor and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary.
On behalf of the celebrity, the hackers claimed that he had earned “a ton of money” from cryptocurrencies in recent years and decided to give away 5,000 BTC and 15,000 ETH.
In subsequent posts, the scammers claimed that the investor announced the event the day before on CNBC and that his account had not been hacked.
The fake posts were deleted within a few hours.
The link promoted by the scammers to receive free cryptocurrency led to their website. The scammers presented it as O’Leary’s official platform for distributing digital assets.
“Anyone can participate, including from the United States,” they stressed.
Journalists noted that the attackers likely reused a modified site previously created for a similar scam in the name of Elon Musk. At the top of the page is the Tesla logo, and the company’s name appears in the URL. In the site’s comments there is a thanks to Musk for transferring some amount in Bitcoin.
Responding to questions about the breach, O’Leary noted that Twitter’s team fixed the issue in 3 hours 9 minutes.
No, #hackers eradicated like the #cockroaches they were. Than-you @elonmusk and the people @Twitter They fixed it in 3hr & 9min. Impressive in the middle of the holidays. I think of my #Followers as family, we don’t agree on anything but nobody f#c*s with my Family! https://t.co/gmAiwmEEgB
— Kevin O’Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) December 30, 2022
“Impressive, given the holidays. I think of my followers as family. We don’t agree on everything, but nobody messes with my family!”, the investor said.
Earlier in December, an unknown put up for sale a database of 400 million Twitter users, including O’Leary’s contact information.
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