Twitter Crypto Accounts Hacked, Scammers Snatch Nearly $1M

It is believed that some accounts were hacked through SIM Swap attacks, while others were accessed via Twitter’s admin panel.

In a recent spree of cyberattacks, swindlers have hacked over eight Twitter accounts belonging to notable individuals in the cryptocurrency world, leveraging these profiles to perpetrate phishing scams.

According to the blockchain investigator ZachXBT, the malicious actor managed to steal almost $1 million in cryptocurrencies.

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On June 9th, ZachXBT highlighted on Twitter that their investigation revealed several wallets interconnected to the scams, which were being publicized by the compromised accounts.

The investigator noted that many of these intrusions were likely a consequence of SIM Swap attacks. However, they also believe that other incidents might be attributed to unauthorized access via Twitter’s admin panel.

The seized Twitter handles include those of eminent figures like Cole Villemain, the founder of Pudgy Penguins, Bitcoin Magazine editor Pete Rizzo, and famed DJ and NFT collector Steve Aoki.

Interestingly, one of the hacked profiles belonged to Peter Schiff, a staunch critic of cryptocurrency and an advocate for gold. His account was manipulated to circulate a questionable link regarding tokenized gold.

I hope Twitter Safety investigates each attack closely as they have resulted in almost seven figures stolen. When the scammer gains control of a Twitter account, phishing scams are tweeted out almost immediately. Slow response times from Twitter Support have resulted in some of these tweets staying up for many hours and even days.

In a bid to bolster online safety, ZachXBT advocated for the use of security keys as a replacement for SMS-based two-factor authentication.

Another notable incident flagged by ZachXBT involved Mira Murati, the Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI. On June 2nd, Murati’s account was found promoting a phishing link for a fake airdrop of an ERC-20 token called OPENAI.

Despite being live for just an hour, the deceptive post was viewed nearly 80,000 times and retweeted 83 times before its eventual removal.