The official Twitter account of Google‘s G Suite was reportedly compromised to promote a Bitcoin (BTC) giveaway scam, technology and business news outlet the Next Web reported Nov. 13.
The G Suite Twitter account was reportedly hacked to advertise a BTC giveaway scam to the page’s more than 800,000 followers. Scammers supposedly spread a message luring users to participate in a fraudulent 10,000 BTC giveaway, concurrently announcing that Google’s G Suite now accepts cryptocurrency as a means of payment.
Screenshot of the scam message. Source: The Next Web
According to the Hard Fork, the message disappeared barely more than 10 minutes after it had appeared. At press time, Google has not replied to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
The scam follows a recent pattern of fraudulent activity involving the Twitter accounts of high-profile companies and individuals. On Nov. 5, several verified Twitter accounts were hacked to impersonate Elon Musk, with one reportedly collecting almost $170,000. Scammers changed the profile name and picture in order to pose as the Tesla CEO, and subsequently posted in comment threads started by the real Elon Musk, so as to give the impression of legitimacy.
As previously reported, Google introduced a ban on cryptocurrency advertisements on Jun. 1 to purportedly protect its customers from fraudulent offerings. The ban affected all Google products, meaning that companies would not be able to serve crypto-related ads on the search engine giant’s own sites, as well as third-party sites in its network.
However, in September Google rolled back some of its restrictions, allowing some crypto businesses to advertise on its platform. Per the new policy, only registered cryptocurrency exchanges could advertise on the Google Adwords platform, targeting U.S. and Japanese audiences.
In October, Google implemented new restrictions on Chrome Web Store extensions, which will likely affect cryptojackers. Chrome extensions submitted to the Web Store would reportedly not be allowed if they contained “obfuscated” code. Google’s Oct. 1 post reads:
“Today over 70% of malicious and policy violating extensions that we block from Chrome Web Store contain obfuscated code.”
