A Twitter hack compromised the accounts of “verified” celebrities and politicians, including Bill GatesBarack ObamaJoe BidenKanye WestKim KardashianWarren BuffettJeff BezosMike Bloomberg, and Elon Musk.

Once the accounts were accessed, they went phishing for cryptocurrency.

For example, Bill Gates’ account Tweeted, quote, “Everyone is asking me to give back, and now is the time.  I am doubling all payments sent to my Bitcoin address for the next 30 minutes.  You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.”

They posted the link, and said, quote, “Only going on for 30 minutes!  Enjoy!”

Obviously, stuff like this SHOULD trigger your B.S. detector . . . but a lot of people fell for it, possibly because they trusted that it was coming from the verified accounts of famous people.  (Still.  You MUST be discerning on social media.)

It’s unclear how much money the hackers got, but it was probably worth it . . .

At one point, one of the fake Bitcoin wallets had received more than $100,000 in Bitcoins through hundreds of transactions.  But it sounds like there were MULTIPLE fake wallets, and they were quickly shuffling the money to other accounts.  In all, it’s estimated the hackers made out with MILLIONS of dollars.

Twitter apologized for the breach, and temporarily suspended “verified” Twitter accounts . . . since those were the ones that were targeted.  Most of those accounts have since been restored.

There’s no word who’s behind the hack, but the FBI is looking into it.

(Remember:  If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.)

(If someone is pressuring you into doing something quickly . . . like, say, before you have a chance to think it through . . . it’s probably a scam.)

(And it makes ABSOLUTELY ZERO SENSE for someone to ask you to send them $1,000 so they can send you $2,000 back.)

(This one may sound basic, but there are far more sophisticated scams on social media . . . not to mention information manipulation . . . so be mindful that there’s always someone looking to sell you a bill of goods.)