Bitcoin [BTC], the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, was recently in the news due to its association to the Swedish Government Party, Swedish Social Democratic Party. Earlier this week, the Twitter account of the Democratic Party was compromised, with the hijacker changing the display name of the handle to “Bitcoin Democrats”, according to a local news portal.
Along with this, the hijacker also made several claims via the Twitter handle. This included the resignation of the Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven and the replacement of the national currency, from Swedish Krona to Bitcoin. The Tweet read, {Translated from Swedish}, “We have abolished the Swedish krona and replaced it with Bitcoin, time to buy!”. The hijacker further stated that Sweden was the first country to officially accept Bitcoin as its currency.
Now, another news portal, Trijo News, reported that five people were involved in this hijack, and these hackers gained control over the account by exploiting the account password reset function with the help of Twitter’s support service. The hackers apparently created a new domain similar to the party’s name, which was later used to host an email under the democratic party’s name.
Then, the hijackers contacted Twitter’s customer service, disguised as Stefan Löfven, and requested them to reset the email ID of the party’s official handle. When asked for an official document, the hackers sent a fake one that they claimed “looked like a joke”; was, however, verified by Twitter.
Source: Trijo
Further, the hacker stated they hijacked the party’s Twitter account as a “fun thing”, adding that they wanted to try this method after learning about it. The hacker said,
“You see, it’s clear that hacking no longer is defined as rooting a server to acquire state secrets. Hacking nowadays is staying one step ahead of technical support […] I just find socialism wrong. I’ve always had a survival of the fittest-instinct kinda, and whoever can’t make their own money is just being lazy”
Diydude2, a Redditor said,
“I generally think script kiddies who pull stunts like this are silly and stupid (why would you open yourself up to “computer crimes” charges just to do something like this?) but I have to admit this is a pretty good tag.”
Sillymackor1, another Redditor said,
“Taking this again since the alt right showed up and tried to do some damage control and silence the facts: The hackers made right wing extreme comments, and promoted a nazi-party. So not someone you want as an bitcoin ally.”