Twitter Account of Google G Suites Hacked to Promote Bitcoin (BTC) Scam

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On Nov. 13, Google’s G Suite official Twitter account was compromised and used to promote a bitcoin giveaway scam.

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The Twitter account was hacked to advertise the scam bitcoin giveaway to more than 800,000 followers on the page. The scammer spread a message to lure users to take part in a fake giveaway. The giveaway promised users 10,000 BTC, and also announced that G Suite from Google now accepts cryptocurrency payments.

The message disappeared after about ten minutes from the page. Presently, Google has not issued any statement about this incident.

Bitcoin scams on Twitter

This scam follows a pattern of fraudulent activities involving verified accounts of high profile people and companies. This has been happening often recently. A few days ago, some top verified accounts on Twitter were used to impersonate, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk. One even succeeded in ripping people off of almost $170,000.

The mode of operation is replying under Musk’s tweets to make it seem legitimate. The scammer hacked verified accounts with lots of followers and change the profile picture as well as profile name. It is carefully done to lure unsuspecting followers.

Google’s ban on crypto advertisements

Google introduced a cryptocurrency ad ban as previously reported on Jun 1. This was done to protect its users from such fraudulent giveaways. This ban was far-reaching, and it affected all the products offered by the company. It also means that companies cannot serve crypto related ads on Google’s search engine. Third party sites in the site’s network are also affected by the ban.

However, two months ago, Google, reduced some restrictions on its products. The tech giant allowed some crypto businesses to use its platform for advertising. But the policy is still different. The new policy states that only registered crypto exchanges can advertise on the Adwords program of Google. This is also restricted to Japanese and US audiences.

Last month, the tech giant also implemented some restrictions on their web store. This placed some limitations on the Chrome Web Store extensions and was implemented to stop crypto jackers in their tracks. Chrome extensions which are submitted to the web store will be stopped if they have obfuscated code.

In the announcement, Google wrote,

Today over 70% of malicious and policy-violating extensions that we block from Chrome Web Store contain obfuscated code.”

The war against scams on Twitter

Twitter seems to be losing the war against crypto scammers hacking accounts to defraud followers. The practice has been going on for long, and many prominent accounts have been hit so far. The tech giant, Google, is not left out. Even Elon Musk has reached out to experts on how to stop these scammers. t

The social media site has recommended that users of the service enable a two-factor authentication to prevent scammers from getting access to their accounts. Also, users should be wary of giveaways requesting that cryptocurrency is sent to certain addresses. Remember, if it looks too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.

Princess Ogono is a writer, lawyer and fitness enthusiast. She believes cryptocurrencies are the future. When she's not writing, she spends time with her adorable cat, Ginger and works out often.

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