The 1.1 million people that follow Giannis Antetokounmpo on Twitter were rather shocked on Thursday afternoon when a string of bizarre tweets, beginning to links to random Instagram accounts and later including obscenities lobbed at the likes of LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and the deceased Kobe Bryant, indicated that the reigning MVP had been hacked.
Most of the tweets were extremely vulgar, including some using racial slurs, and we’re not going to link to them here (namely because they’re awful and also because they’ll surely be deleted once Giannis gets control of his accounts back). Shortly after the tweets made their way out, Giannis’ brother, Kostas, announced that Giannis had been hacked, and it was far worse than them just getting into his Twitter account.
Giannis’ twitter, phone, email and bank accounts were hacked! He genuinely apologizes for everything that was tweeted and he will be back as soon as possible! The things that were said by this hacker were extremely inappropriate and disgusting!
— Kostas Antetokounmpo (@Kostas_ante13) May 7, 2020
The hackers apparently got access to his phone, email, and bank accounts as well, the last of those obviously being the most important and hopefully they’re able to resolve the issue quickly. It also served as a not so friendly reminder to superstar athletes to be very careful about cybersecurity — particularly those that game online and stream on Twitch publicly. As such, Patrick Beverley saw it as an opportunity to promote one of his ad partners with a not so subtle tweet about protecting yourself from hackers.
So when I’m online at home I don’t want someone hacking my Wifi or stealing my data. I use NordVPN to keep my phone & laptop protected at all times. It’s safe, it’s really easy to use, and they’re giving you an extra month free if you sign up today. https://t.co/sCzJ8K8DdO #ad pic.twitter.com/wdaIHvQHJA
— Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) May 7, 2020
Again, hopefully Giannis is able to recover his accounts soon and his bank can resolve any issues or fraudulent activity that may have taken place, and you can be sure that he’ll be updating his passwords soon.