Scammers steal nearly $1M after hijacking 8+ prominent crypto twitter accounts

2 years ago

The radical of scammers person precocious taken implicit accounts belonging to the laminitis of Pudgy Penguins, the CTO of OpenAI and adjacent crypto hater Peter Schiff.

Scammers bargain  astir   $1M aft  hijacking 8+ salient  crypto twitter accounts

Over the past fewer weeks, a radical of scammers has hijacked much than 8 Twitter accounts belonging to salient figures successful the crypto abstraction to beforehand phishing scams. The radical has stolen astir $1 cardinal worthy of crypto truthful far, according to blockchain sleuth ZachXBT.

In a June 9 Twitter thread, ZachXBT outlined that helium had uncovered respective wallets “linked connected chain” that are connected to phishing scams promoted by the precocious hacked accounts.

“While the bulk of these attacks were the effect of a SIM Swap it seems different accounts were perchance stolen with a [Twitter admin] panel,” ZachXBT noted.

Over the past fewer weeks we person seen 8+ relationship takeovers connected to the aforesaid radical of scammers arsenic evident by however their addresses are linked on-chain.

I anticipation @TwitterSafety investigates each onslaught intimately arsenic they person resulted successful astir 7 figures stolen. @miramuratipic.twitter.com/ypnqyb5oNy

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) June 8, 2023

The accounts beryllium to figures specified arsenic Pudgy Penguins laminitis Cole Villemain, DJ and NFT collector Steve Aoki and Bitcoin Magazine exertion Pete Rizzo.

Oddly enough, golden proponent and fervent crypto hater Peter Schiff besides saw his relationship hacked to beforehand a dubious nexus relating to tokenized golden successful Decentralized Finance.

“I anticipation Twitter Safety investigates each onslaught intimately arsenic they person resulted successful astir 7 figures stolen,” ZachXBT said, adding that:

“When the scammer gains power of a Twitter account, phishing scams are tweeted retired astir immediately. Slow effect times from Twitter Support person resulted successful immoderate of these tweets staying up for galore hours and adjacent days.”
Tweeted phishing scams. Source: ZachXBT, Twitter

The blockchain sleuth urged radical to usage a information cardinal arsenic opposed to opting for SMS-based two-factor authentication.

Another 1 of the relationship hacks highlighted by ZachXBT includes OpenAI’s CTO Mira Murati.

Related: Uniswap scam alert: Fraudsters impersonate executives and make fake website

On June 2, members of the crypto assemblage fired disconnected warnings astir her relationship sharing a phishing nexus promoting a fake airdrop for an ERC-20 token named OPENAI.

This peculiar station was unrecorded for astir an hr and was viewed 79,600 times and retweeted 83 times earlier it was deleted. Notably, the scammers had restricted who could reply to the tweet successful a bid to halt radical placing warnings connected it.

In precocious May, Arthur Madrid, the co-founder and CEO of metaverse level The Sandbox was besides taxable to the aforesaid benignant of Twitter relationship hack that saw the promotion of a fake SAND airdrop.

It is unclear if this peculiar hack is connected to the radical of hackers identified by ZachXBT however.

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