UK Supermarket Twitter Hackers Try to Revive Classic Bitcoin Scam

The UK-based supermarket giant Tesco has had its Twitter account compromised by hackers. Almost mirroring an attack last year, those behind it have attempted to scam Bitcoin from the store’s customers.

Tesco appears to have now regained control of its Twitter account. The hackers attempts to earn Bitcoin from the supermarket’s customers appear to have been unsuccessful.

Tesco Twitter Hackers Impersonate Bill Gates, Ask for Bitcoin and Personal Details

According to a report in cyber security publication Bleeping Computer, the UK supermarket giant Tesco had its Twitter account taken over by hackers yesterday.

The report states that those behind the attack attempted to revive an old Twitter-based Bitcoin scam as part of the hack. The Tesco account tweeted that anyone sending Bitcoin to wallet address “3M3eTTJwkQkkL7GjSSSfrpfPJLyJztMAcy” would receive twice the amount in return.

The scam was popular on Twitter around the last Bitcoin bull market and into 2018. It prompted many large crypto personalities that had had their identities usurped by scammers to change their Twitter names to include words to the effect of “Not giving away Bitcoin”, or even Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin’s “Non-giver of Ether” addition.

The efforts of the hackers to defraud Tesco customers of their Bitcoin apparently have been completely unsuccessful. The wallet listed below shows that not a single satoshi has been sent to its public address:

Blockchain explorers show that no Bitcoin has been sent to the hacker’s wallet.

In addition to posting Tweets asking for Bitcoin payments, those behind the hack changed the name of the account to Bill Gates and began retweeting the computer scientist. The hackers even used Gates’s current Twitter picture and a now-deleted Twitter handle @Billgatesmsc.

The @tesco account has mysteriously morphed into Bill Gates pic.twitter.com/PSRCZ5ZT95

— carpet (@WHS_Carpet) June 24, 2019

Finally, those complaining to the supermarket giant about goods they have bought have apparently been targeted in the attack too. The Bleeping Computer report states that those controlling the account responded to some customers by requesting personal details, including full name and address, so that the issue could be rectified.

The attack is very similar to one that occurred last year against two large UK retailers. Clothing store, Matalan, and the British arm of French Pathé both had their Twitter accounts fall victim to scammers who offered to increase the amount of Bitcoin sent to them by naive followers. In that example, the scammers changed the profiles to resemble that of Tesla CEO, Elon Musk. Rather more successful than that those behind the Tesco hack, they reportedly made off with around $150,000.

It now appears that Tesco has regained control of the account and has deleted all the Tweets indicating that there was a security breach. However, the blue “verified account” sign is no longer shown next to its name, indicating a change of account details.

 

Related Reading: Bitcoin Bullishness Makes Crypto Attractive to Scammers Once Again

Featured Image from Shutterstock.

 

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