Criminals purport to defraud Twitter users by offering free blue badge

Threat actors impersonate Twitter in an attempt to turmoil the social media platform is boiling since Elon Musk took over.

Now that $8-worth Twitter Blue subscription service is here, users are jumping at the opportunity to mock it by verifying Jesus Christ, while cybercriminals are eager to defraud more people.

On Wednesday, an attacker apparently paid to get the blue badged and renamed their profile to “Twitter,” claiming it’s “The Verified Blue badge source.”

A message posted by the crook on Wednesday reads: “Whoa, Twitter Blue is now available for free. Crypto/NFT holders can now get Twitter Blue for free by authenticating their wallet assets.”

It also provides what seems to be a phishing link and hints at a “little surprise after authenticating… bird NFT?”

Only the surprise that awaits is most probably a drained wallet. Even though the account, which has been on Twitter since 2013 and has 26k followers, is now suspended, it managed to collect nearly 5,000 likes and over 35,000 retweets.

Twitter reportedly does not review accounts belonging to the Blue subscription service, meaning crooks can quickly jump on opportunities to enforce their accounts’ legitimacy by adding a blue badge.

While Twitter has around 240 million daily active users, only 423,000 profiles had been verified before the new policy came into effect.