Twitter is silent as hackers scam users with stolen high profile verified accounts

Looking at Jase Robertson and David Dayen, you wouldn’t think they had much in common. Robertson is known for his time on the A&E reality TV show Ducks breed. He is currently hosting a show on conservative digital outlet TheBlaze. David Dane is a longtime progressive journalist and executive editor of The American Prospect magazine.

However, over the past few weeks, tweets from Robertson and Dane’s Twitter account have been sharing the exact same message.

Hello Twitter family! Begins tweets posted on both accounts. “I have 10 MacBooks that I will personally sign, and you can buy them for $600 and FREE shipping! It’s on a first come, first served basis, and all proceeds will go to charity! My DMS is open if you’re interested”

Each account’s tweets include the exact same image of a MacBook Pro sitting on wood floors. What is happening here? Did Dane and Robertson put their political differences aside and start Apple Resale?

no. It was hacked, along with a slew of other old verified accounts on the social media platform. Twitter has been silent about this.

Although some of these accounts have been hacked for weeks now, Twitter has not suspended the accounts, allowing hackers to defraud users of thousands of dollars, if not more.

Tweet from David Dane’s hacked Twitter account.
Credit: Mashable screenshot

Dain told Mashable that he was originally hacked last summer after clicking on a malicious link that gave bad actors access to his account. He says his account was quickly suspended by Twitter at the time, before Elon Musk acquired the company. When he regained access about a month later, Dayne quickly activated two-factor authentication on his account. Implementing this security measure should have made another hack very difficult.

However, here @ddayen Twitter account, just 6 months later, was hacked and scammed users of the platform.

Followers fall for scams

Mashable has heard from at least one of Dayne’s followers who got scammed after viewing Dayne’s tweets. This person saw a tweet from a user they trusted and, not realizing that Dain had been hacked, fell for the scheme in a moment of desperation.

“I fell in love with it,” the Twitter user told Mashable. “I desperately need a computer.”

Another tweet from David Dane’s hacked Twitter account.
Credit: Mashable screenshot

This person shared a private DM conversation between him and the person who runs the hacked ddayen account. They also provided screenshots of a $1,500 transaction they made to the scammer, which included payments from family members who also wanted to buy a MacBook. The scammer requires that they pay via Zelle, Cashapp, or Apple Pay – all peer-to-peer payment services that often don’t provide refunds to scammed users.

Dane told Mashable that he has sent two support tickets with Twitter since it was hacked on March 12th. He also sent responses to the Twitter auto-reply asking for more information. In addition, he tweeted publicly on his official Twitter support account, TwitterSupport. His account is still hacked and active, and the scammer’s tweets are visible to all of Twitter.

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“Surprisingly twittersupport didn’t shut down @ddayen after I reported the hack with dozens of other people,” Dayen chirp(Opens in a new tab) From his backup account, @david_dayen.

This is not an isolated incident

Ducks breedRobertson was even hacked earlier, with an earlier fraudulent tweet appearing in his account feed on March 2. Robertson announced that his followers had been hacked on March 5 episode(Opens in a new tab) or his podcast.

Winnie Wong, former senior political advisor to Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, has also been hacked by these scammers. Despite that, it looks like they’re trying something different with her account.

Wong told Mashable that when her @WaywardWinifred account was first hacked on March 13, scammers originally started posting the same MacBook scam. But then, after that I started(Opens in a new tab) Twitter(Opens in a new tab) After her account and Dayne’s other high-profile Twitter account, @People4Bernie, were hacked, the scammers blocked her account from viewing tweets from the hacked accounts. Then, the scammers changed her Twitter profile and header to make the account look like an official Twitter profile.

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WaywardWinifred’s account, which was then hacked I started(Opens in a new tab) To DM Wong’s contacts – including politicians and other influencer users – posing as Twitter Support members. The DMs inform the user that they have violated Twitter’s policies and that they need to fill out a form on the website “security-twitter.com/resetpassword”, which is a phishing website set up by the scammer to look like a Twitter page in order to trick the user into sharing their password so they can take over the account.

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The phishing site is currently redirecting to your Instagram account @employee(Opens in a new tab), which appears to be connected to the scammer. One picture(Opens in a new tab) @morcegoen’s page has comments from verified Instagram users like actor John Cusack. Cusack’s own Instagram account was hacked at the time this account was created. Cusack’s Instagram account posted photos of the MacBooks while they were being hacked, along with the same “10 MacBooks” for sale.

The same scammer hit other high-profile Twitter accounts earlier this year as well. an actress Anya Taylor Joy(Opens in a new tab)A Twitter account was hacked and began tweeting about the MacBook scam in January. the actor Jonathan Frakes(Opens in a new tab)The account started doing the same thing in late December last year, too. However, both Joy’s and Frakes’ accounts have since been returned to their rightful owner.

A January tweet from the hacked Anya Taylor-Joy Twitter account.
Credit: Mashable screenshot

So far, all of the notable accounts that have been hacked are old verified accounts, which means they were verified before Musk took over the platform and allowed users to make purchases. Blue Twitter Checkmark Verified for $8 per month.

Twitter’s inaction on this issue is problematic. As Wong told me, her concern is not that she can’t access her account, but rather that the accounts haven’t been suspended yet. This makes it possible for the hacker to continue to scam her followers as well as other Twitter users. She points out that the problem with accounts that were stolen earlier this year, like that of Anya Taylor Joy, was resolved at a time when Twitter had a larger workforce. Since those hacks earlier this year, Twitter has gone downhill additional Tours Layoffs.

Mashable could not reach Twitter for comment because the company no longer has a communications department under Musk.