Cryptocurrency scammers had reportedly hijacked retail giant Target’s official Twitter account – in order to promote a fake bitcoin (BTC) giveaway.
Going After Target’s 2 Million Followers
The fraudsters had encouraged Target Coproration’s over 2 million Twitter followers to send a small amount of digital currency to them – in order to enroll in a 5,000 BTC giveaway, an amount valued at about $30 million.
Target Corporation, the second-largest American department store retailer with an annual revenue of over $70 billion, is now among several other large organizations that has been targeted by malicious scammers on Twitter.
Unsuspecting users that sent cryptocurrency to the addresses provided by the scammers must have permanently lost their funds – as it was yet another crypto giveaway scam on Twitter.
Target Has Not Commented On Incident Yet
Although the tweet has now been deleted, it’s worth noting that large social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter have not responded effectively – in order to prevent exploitative activity carried out by numerous malicious entities.
Target has not yet addressed the issue – as it has not released an official statement regarding the incident.
It’s unclear at press time how successful the scammers were in conducting the fake giveaway, however, the BTC address they had provided in the fraudulent links have a received a few small incoming transfers.
The small amounts of crypto may also have been sent to the supplied addresses by the scammers themselves – to make it seem as if it was a legitimate promotion.
CapGemini Account Hacked To Promote 10,000 BTC Giveaway
On November 12th, the official Twitter account of CapGemini (Australia), a large consulting firm, was hacked, and was also being used to promote a fake giveaway. The scammers had been posing as Tesla founder and billionaire investor, Elon Musk.
Similar to how most of these types of scams are carried out, the fraudsters had been telling users to send small crypto payments to supplied addresses in order to enroll in a 10,000 BTC ($60 million) giveaway.
It seems that Musk and other high-profile celebrities and business tycoons have become a popular target of Twitter scammers. As CryptoGlobe reported on November 5th, another account impersonating Elon Musk had been conducting the same type of fraudulent 10,000 BTC giveaway. In a span of a few hours, the account managed to receive over 6 BTC, an amount valued at almost $40,000.
