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A recent hack involving the Twitter of retailer Target has wise investors doubling down on too-good-to-be-true offers.
Target Becomes the Target
The cryptocurrency community is no stranger to hacks and scams and most hodlers are wise enough to steer clear of too-good-to-be-true ICOs and The Real Real Elon Musk #GivingAwayFreeETH Twitter scams. In spite of this, hackers remain undeterred and numerous get rich quick schemes and all sorts of scams continue to proliferate on the internet.
The most recent of these involves American retail giant Target and itâs official Twitter account. The company was recently the victim of a somewhat obvious scam but nonetheless, there are surely a few innocent doo-gooders who fall for these blatant schemes.
Apparently, the scammers hacked into Targetâs official Twitter account to promote a Bitcoin giveaway. After co-opting the account, the hackers falsely posted that Target was introducing cryptocurrency payments online and instore and to celebrate the event the company would give away 5,000 Bitcoin.
Buy One Get Three Free!
In order to enlist in the crypto-raffle, participants were asked to verify their BTC address by sending up to 2 BTC in order to enter a raffle to win up to 40 BTC in return.
Since 2017âs explosion in cryptocurrency awareness, Bitcoin and Ethereum scams have become something of a routine affair on Twitter. The number of figures like Vitalik Buterin and Elon Musk giving away ETH has led the real owners of these accounts to tag #NotGivingAwayETH or #NotGivingAwayBTC to their Twitter accounts.
Donât Knock the Hustle
Twitter has taken measures to prevent crypto-scams, yet scammers now resort to hacking into verified accounts and posting Bitcoin and Ethereum giveaways. As reported previously by Bitcoinist, crypto-giveaway scams are surprisingly lucrative and a recent interview with a âprofessionalâ scammer revealed that this simple scams typically net $50,000 â $100,000 per day. Â
Should Twitter do more to prevent these type of hacks from occurring or is it up to an investorâs own recognizance to differentiate a scam from an investment opportunity? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.