Whale Alert Can No Longer Tweet Due to Twitter’s Anti-Hack Measures

Published at: July 16, 2020

Whale Alert, a popular service dedicated to tracking major cryptocurrency transactions, is being negatively affected by Twitter’s anti-hack measures.

In a July 16 tweet, Whale Alert said that the crypto bot can no longer tweet any transactions either automatically or manually “due to anti-hack measures taken by Twitter.”

Whale Alert noted that posts are still available on their Telegram channel, and expressed hope that Twitter will resolve the issue soon.

Whale Alert told Cointelegraph that they expect it to be a few days before posting on the platform returns to normal:

“Last night's hack is the single biggest security breach for Twitter to date and the disabling of the API's is a drastic measure to prevent further damage. They are probably thoroughly checking and testing everything to make sure this doesn't happen again, so we expect this to last at least a few days with everything coming back online one system at a time.”

Largest channel to connect with the crypto community

Whale Alert says that Twitter is the primary channel for distributing data about crypto transfers. The service is not reliant on Twitter for revenue, Whale Alert noted.

Whale Alert’s Twitter account has much more exposure than its Telegram channel. As of press time, Whale Alert’s Twitter account has more than 280,000 followers, while the Telegram channel has 36,000 subscribers.

After joining Twitter in September 2018, Whale Alert has established itself as one of the biggest sources of info regarding crypto transactions. Posting large and suspicious cryptocurrency transactions live, Whale Alert is known for contributing to investigations involving hacks of major global crypto exchanges. Whale Alert’s Telegram channel has been around since April 2019.

“Largest hacking incident”

On July 15, Twitter suffered a massive hack that compromised high-profile Twitter accounts like those of Joe Biden, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos to offer fake Bitcoin (BTC) giveaways. Major crypto accounts on Twitter have also been hacked, including accounts involving the world’s largest crypto exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, Gemini and Bitfinex.

Following the hack, which quickly became referred to as the largest such hacking incident, Twitter took significant measures to limit access to internal systems and tools. The hackers apparently collected large amounts of Bitcoin in the hack, as one of the wallets involved in the attack has collected over 12 BTC ($110,000) so far. Tron CEO Justin Sun subsequently promised to give a $1 million bounty to those who manage to track down the hackers.

Tags
Technology
Hacks
Hackers
Social Media
Transactions
Twitter
Telegram
Related Posts
Alleged Twitter Hacker's Digital Hearing Overtaken By Pornography and Rap Music
The teen behind July's massive Twitter breach had a digital courtroom hearing on Aug. 5. The trial was postponed, however, due to a highly irregular breach in the hearing's Zoom call. During a "Zoom bombing," infiltrators "broke into the call to interrupt the proceedings," said the Tampa Bay Times on Aug. 5. "Posing as CNN and BBC News, they repeatedly interrupted the meeting with rap music, movie dialogue and shouting," the outlet added. The perpetrators then proceeded to project pornographic materials onto viewer's computers. The Florida judge on the case dismissed the hearing. The alleged hacker pleaded a lesser bail …
Technology / Aug. 6, 2020
F2Pool Returns $500K of Abnormal ETH Transaction Fee to Sender
F2Pool, a Chinese mining pool that recently mined an Ether (ETH) transaction with an abnormal transaction fee of 2,310 ETH, has returned 90% of the fee to its sender. Announcing the news on June 18, F2Pool said that the MiningPoolHub, the original owner of the address behind the transaction, has received back 2,079 ETH, or about $480,000. The mining pool specified the transaction ID showing that F2Pool has returned the amount to its original owner. In order to complete the reimbursement transaction, the original address holder had to sign the new address using the private key of the original address. …
Technology / June 18, 2020
Defending Bitcoin’s Integrity in the Great Twitter Hack
Bitcoin (BTC) has made global headlines again because of the recent Twitter hack, but this time, we need to work harder to protect Bitcoin’s integrity and the progress the industry has made. The coordinated social engineering attack compromised the Twitter accounts of high-profile figures and organizations like Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Tesla founder Elon Musk, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, former United States President Barack Obama and 2020 U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, among many others, to ask for Bitcoin in fake “giveaway” posts. When the story broke, the New York Times, BBC and other mainstream media outlets were quick to …
Decentralization / July 22, 2020
Justin Sun Offers $1 Million Bounty in Exchange for Twitter Hackers
After a massive number of Twitter accounts were hacked on July 15, one of the affected, Tron founder Justin Sun, put a bounty on the heads of those responsible. Tron's founder will give $1 million to the person or persons responsible for tracking down the hackers and providing pertinent data on the situation, Sun, CEO of BitTorrent and Founder of TRON told, Cointelegraph. Sun added: “We are working closely with Twitter to resolve this issue immediately and return our accounts to normal. We are always vigilant in the handling our accounts; operating safely and responsibly -- taking the security of …
Business / July 15, 2020
British Army’s social media accounts hacked by crypto scammers
The British Army’s official Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts were breached on Sunday for almost four hours, with scammers promoting rip-off nonfungible token (NFT) collections and cryptocurrency scams. Just after 2:00 pm EST on Sunday, the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (MOD) Press Office tweeted it was aware the Army’s social media accounts were compromised and had begun an investigation. Nearly four hours later, close to 5:45 pm EST, the Office provided an update that the account breaches were resolved. The British Army's official Twitter account also apologized for the posts, saying it would conduct an investigation and “learn from …
Defi / July 4, 2022