Bitcoin (BTC) has made world headlines once more due to the latest Twitter hack, however this time, we have to work tougher to guard Bitcoin’s inte
Bitcoin (BTC) has made world headlines once more due to the latest Twitter hack, however this time, we have to work tougher to guard Bitcoin’s integrity and the progress the trade has made.
The coordinated social engineering assault compromised the Twitter accounts of high-profile figures and organizations like Microsoft co-founder Invoice Gates, Tesla founder Elon Musk, Amazon proprietor Jeff Bezos, former United States President Barack Obama and 2020 U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, amongst many others, to ask for Bitcoin in faux “giveaway” posts.
When the story broke, the New York Instances, BBC and different mainstream media retailers had been fast to label the incident a “Bitcoin rip-off” or “crypto rip-off.”
To have “Bitcoin” and “rip-off” utilized in the identical breath within the world media could really feel like all of the work that’s gone into constructing belief for this revolutionary know-how since its creation in 2009 has been for nothing.
That is much more motive why corporations and their communication groups should flip the publicity Bitcoin is getting now right into a optimistic for the trade.
Set the file straight: Bitcoin is to not blame
The primary level to make clear with the media, mates, household and newcomers is that it is a high-profile Twitter hack.
This isn’t a “Bitcoin hack,” not a “Bitcoin Twitter hack” nor even a “Twitter Bitcoin hack” — as described by The Night Customary and even Wired — as a result of Bitcoin didn’t get hacked, nor did Bitcoin trigger the hack.
It’s much more regarding to see The Late Present with Stephen Colbert describe the hackers as “Bitcoin Bandits,” when the motives of the hackers haven’t been confirmed.
Twitter is a centralized group; it holds all customers’ knowledge and accounts in a single place. For the hackers to achieve entry to this many Twitter accounts, they must break into Twitter’s centralized database.
Let’s spell it out clearly: Hackers broke into Twitter’s database and compromised high-profile accounts to ask for Bitcoin.
A CNN Enterprise report did the story justice by saying the rip-off itself was pretty frequent and Bitcoin was simply “the forex used to shortly money in on the hack.”
Associated: Twitter Wouldn’t Be Hacked If It Have been Backed by Blockchain Know-how
Making the case for Bitcoin as a decentralized forex
This hack raises considerations in regards to the vulnerability of centralized organizations that maintain our knowledge and strengthens the case for Bitcoin’s decentralized peer-to-peer community.
Inside a number of hours of the preliminary faux “giveaway” tweets, the hacker’s Bitcoin tackle acquired roughly $120,000 price of Bitcoin in 375 transactions. To place it into context, $120,000 is a minor loss compared to the infamous cryptocurrency hacks that the trade has seen, such because the $40 million that was stolen, from the centralized cryptocurrency alternate Binance again in Might 2019.
We should additionally clarify that the unfortunate crypto holders who misplaced their funds, sadly, had been duped by the faux giveaway submit fairly than had their funds “stolen.”
Whereas Bitcoin transactions are irreversible, that is the perfect alternative for newcomers to study the advantages of Bitcoin’s traceability as a result of the Bitcoin that was finally voluntarily despatched to the hackers can simply be tracked on a blockchain explorer.
Not lengthy after the hack was found, Twitter restricted the power for folks to tweet crypto addresses. The crypto neighborhood can even argue that this didn’t make an enormous distinction to the protection of consumer funds as a result of it’s tougher to steal from a crypto account (until you’ve its personal key), whereas sharing your checking account particulars publicly would possibly get you into critical bother.
This can be a critical breach of Twitter’s centralized database, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation over nationwide safety considerations.
It simply so occurs, nevertheless, that Bitcoin was the forex the hackers had been demanding this time.
The views, ideas and opinions expressed listed here are the creator’s alone and don’t essentially mirror or characterize the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Samantha Yap is the founder and CEO of YAP International — a world PR agency with a deal with serving to significant fintech, blockchain and cryptocurrency corporations inform their story on the worldwide stage. Samantha is a fintech, blockchain and cryptocurrency media specialist with previous expertise working as a world freelance journalist in Jakarta, Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. Previous to delving into fintech PR, she labored at Channel NewsAsia in Singapore as a broadcast journalist and present affairs producer.