FBI hunts for hacker who compromised accounts belonging to Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, others

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched an enquiry into how hackers accessed Twitter’s internal systems to hijack accounts of high-profile people.

The hacking compromised the accounts of personalities such as US presidential candidate Joe Biden, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, former US President Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk, using their accounts to solicit digital currency.

“At this time, the accounts appear to have been compromised in order to perpetuate cryptocurrency fraud,” the FBI said in a statement. “We advise the public not to fall victim to this scam by sending cryptocurrency or money in relation to this incident. As this investigation is ongoing, we will not be making further comment at this time.”

Twitter in a statement published on Friday said that around 130 accounts were targeted, adding that “for a small subset” of these profiles, the attackers were able to gain control and then send Tweets from those accounts.

It added that it was continuing to assess whether the attackers were able to access private data of the targeted accounts.

However, US legislators are worried about a recurrence of the attack which also compromised the Twitter accounts of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, and others.

“While this scheme appears financially motivated…imagine if these bad actors had a different intent to use powerful voices to spread disinformation to potentially interfere with our elections, disrupt the stock market, or upset our international relations,” US Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat, said in a statement.