Twitter silent as hackers scam users with stolen high-profile verified accounts
Looking at Jase Robertson and David Dayen, you wouldn’t think the two of them have much in common. Robertson is known for his time on the A&E reality TV show Duck Dynasty. He currently hosts a show on the conservative digital outlet TheBlaze. David Dayen is a longtime progressive journalist and executive editor for The American Prospect magazine.
However, over the past few weeks, tweets from both Robertson’s and Dayen’s Twitter accounts have been sharing the exact same messaging.
A tweet from Jase Robertson’s hacked Twitter account.
Credit: Mashable Screenshot
“Hello twitter family !” begins the tweets posted to both accounts. “I have 10 MacBooks that I will personally sign myself , that you can purchase for $600 and free Shipping ! First come first serve basis , and all proceeds will be going to charity ! MY DMS ARE OPENED IF INTERESTED”
Included in each account’s tweets is the exact same photo of a MacBook Pro sitting on wood flooring. What’s going on here? Have Dayen and Robertson put their political differences aside and start an Apple reselling business?
No. They’ve been hacked, along with a slew of other legacy verified accounts on the social media platform. And, Twitter has been silent on the matter.
Even though some of these accounts have been hacked for weeks now, Twitter has not suspended the accounts, allowing the hackers to scam users of thousands of dollars, if not more.
A tweet from David Dayen’s hacked Twitter account.
Credit: Mashable Screenshot
Dayen tells Mashable that he was originally hacked last summer after clicking on a malicious link which provided bad actors with access to his account. He says his account was quickly suspended by Twitter then, well before Elon Musk acquired the company. When he regained access about a month later, Dayen quickly activated two-factor authentication on his account. Enacting this security measure should’ve made another hack extremely difficult to carry out.
However, here the @ddayen Twitter account is, just 6 months later, hacked and scamming the platform’s users.
Followers are falling for the scams
Mashable heard from at least one of Dayen’s followers who got scammed after seeing Dayen’s tweets. This person saw a tweet…
