Many believed that the attackers who collected 13.14 Bitcoin worth about $ 120,000 - on July 15, from the biggest breakthrough in Twitter history, had accessed direct mailboxes from 36 users, including an elected Dutch official, and had downloaded "Twitter data" for eight Accounts.
The company did not reveal who were the owners of these accounts.
While the platform confirmed that its initial findings on the scope of the breach have not yet been fully verified, the development does not bode well for prominent victims of the breach. Among them are former US President Barack Obama, Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden, CEO of Tesla Elon Musk, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, billionaire, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, famous investor Warren Buffett and rapper Kanye West, as well as accounts for Apple, Uber and Cashaap .
The repercussions of the operation could exceed the relatively small amount of bitcoin that the attackers had apparently collected from 400 fraud victims. As we mentioned, illegally obtained data and communications can be used to blackmail influencers and celebrities - and blackmail them with much larger amounts of money in exchange for data on their Twitter accounts.
Meanwhile, the Elliptic Blockchain Analytics company published its latest findings on what happened to the bitcoin that the attackers were able to steal.
“What is clear is that the money has been divided into smaller amounts and passed through hundreds of new portfolios. This is a tactic we usually see used by those who seek to launder the proceeds of crime: splitting the money and merging it with other more legitimate bitcoins in order to hide the link to its illicit source. The company said that the majority of hacker money (about 60%) is now in 37 newly created Bitcoin titles.
It added that about 15% of bitcoin operations were mixed with other funds, using the services of ChipMixer and Wasabi Wallet.
Elliptic said that bitcoin mixers raise money from various sources, making it difficult, if not impossible, to track the bitcoin currency afterward. This is another common technique used by those who launder the proceeds of crime with bitcoin.
By analyzing the flow of the stolen cryptocurrency, another blockchain analysis company Chainalysis said it was able to determine which accounts are most used by hackers as part of the fraud.
In a post I wrote the company:
"Not all Bitcoins came from the victims. Nearly $ 20,000 of the total came from a suspicious address we believe belongs to the hackers themselves. This is a common method used by fraudsters to make it appear that more people have sent money to the fraud and confidence-building process with potential victims who They check the fraud’s address using Explorer. "
Chainalysis concluded that "from approximately 21 Bitcoin deposited in a cash withdrawal address over the life of that wallet, as of 4:30 pm on July 22, 2020, approximately 9 bitcoins are sent to 23 wallets, and 8 bitcoins are sent to mixing services such as Wasabi Wallet, 4 bitcoins were sent to other entities. "
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