周三下午，美国几位名人的推特账号都要求粉丝“回馈社会。”
The message from Tesla founder Elon Musk's Twitter account said, "You send $1,000, I send back $2,000. Only doing this for the next 30 minutes." The message provided a link of letters and numbers for followers to donate their bitcoins. Bitcoin is a form of digital money not supported by any government but exchanged by many people online.
特斯拉创始人埃隆·马斯克的推特账户发消息称：“你给我转1000美元，我返给你2000美元。30分钟内有效。”这个推文提供了一串字母和数字链接让粉丝捐出他们的比特币。比特币是一种数字货币，不受任何政府背书，但是很多人在网上交易。
Soon the Twitter accounts of Microsoft's Bill Gates, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and company accounts for Apple joined the appeal. Former U.S. President Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, also joined in. Billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett wanted people on Twitter to do the same. Entertainers Kayne West and Kim Kardashian and boxer Floyd Mayweather all asked their followers to "give back."
很快微软公司的比尔·盖茨、亚马逊公司的杰夫·贝佐斯以及苹果公司的推特账户都加入了这一呼吁。前总统奥巴马和民主党总统候选人乔·拜恩也加入了进来。亿万富翁迈克尔·布隆伯格和沃伦·巴菲特也希望推特用户这么做。艺人凯恩·韦斯特、金·卡戴珊以及拳王手弗洛伊德·梅威瑟都要求他们的粉丝“回馈社会”。
Over $100,000 in bitcoins were sent to the appeal before Twitter could disable the accounts and removed the posts. The social media company said it was a "coordinated social engineering attack." It said someone targeted "some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools" to take control of the accounts.
在推特禁用这些账户并删除推文之前，已经有价值超过10万美元的比特币被转到了这个呼吁中的比特币账户。这家社交媒体公司表示，这是“一次有配合的社交工程攻击。”该公司称有人攻击了“我们一些有内部系统和相关工具权限的员工”并控制了这些账户。
Jack Dorsey, the company's founder, called it a "tough day for us at Twitter." But the attack was not the first incident of this kind at the social media company.
该公司创始人杰克·多尔西称这是我们艰难的一天。但是这并非这家社交媒体公司首次发生此类事件。
In 2017, President Donald Trump's account disappeared from the pages of his millions of followers. The company brought it back online after 11 minutes. An investigation found it was removed by a Twitter employee on his last day of work.
2017年，川普总统的账户从他数百万粉丝的页面上消失了。该公司在11分钟后将其重新上线。调查发现，一名推特员工在工作的最后一天将川普的账户删了。
Cybersecurity experts warn that attacks on accounts with millions of followers could have serious effects around the world.
网络安全专家警告说，对拥有数百万粉丝的推特账户进行攻击可能会在全球范围内造成严重影响。
Michael Gazeley is managing director of the internet security company Network Box. He told the Associated Press, "If you receive a tweet from a verified account, belonging to a well-known and therefore trusted person, you can no longer assume it's really from them."
迈克尔·加兹利是互联网安全公司Network Box的董事总经理。他对美联社表示：“如果你看到一篇来自认证账户的推文，这个账户属于知名度高和值得信赖的人士，你不能再认为这就是他们发的。”
Twitter says its verified accounts are proven to be real by the company.
推特称其认证账户已经经过该公司的验证是真实的。
U.S. Senator Ed Markey has another worry. He said in a statement: "...imagine if these bad actors had a different intent to use powerful voices to spread disinformation to potentially interfere with our elections, disrupt the stock market, or upset our international relations."
美国参议员埃德·马基还有一个担忧。他在一份声明中表示：“假设这些坏人怀有其它意图，利用这些名人账户传播虚假消息，有可能会干扰我们的选举、破坏股市或是破坏我们的国际关系。”
Senator Josh Hawley noted that millions of users depended on Twitter not just to send tweets but also to communicate privately by direct messaging. He called on Twitter to work with the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, to secure the site.
参议员乔什·霍利指出，数百万用户不仅利用推特发推文，也利用其消息功能进行私下交流。他呼吁推特同美国司法部以及联邦调查局合作保护该网站。
"A successful attack on your system's servers represents a threat to all of your users' privacy and data security," said Hawley.
霍利表示：“成功攻入推特系系统服务器意味着所有用户的隐私和数据安全受到威胁。”
The Reuters news agency reported Thursday that the FBI is now investigating the attack.
路透社周四报道称，联邦调查局正在调查这次网络攻击。
I'm John Russell.
我是约翰·罗素。(51VOA.COM原创翻译，禁止转载，违者必究！)