A blockchain analyst under the pseudonym ZachXBT reported that at least 8 popular cryptocurrency Twitter accounts have been hacked in recent weeks, and hackers have received nearly $1 million.
ZachXBT discovered several cryptocurrency wallets that are “linked in a chain” and linked to phishing scams being conducted on the compromised accounts.
“Most of these attacks were carried out via SIM card spoofing, but some appear to have been accessed by hackers through the Twitter admin panel. We’ve seen at least 8 hacks conducted by the same group of scammers,” the analyst noted.
The accounts of Pudgy Penguins founder Cole Villemain, NFT DJ and collector Steve Aoki, and Bitcoin Magazine editor Pete Rizzo were hacked;
Interestingly, the account of famous cryptocurrency skeptic Peter Schiff was also on the list. Fraudsters promoted a link on Schiff’s page to a spoof site about buying tokenized gold.
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“I hope Twitter security is investigating these cases, because the amount of losses has almost reached seven figures. After gaining access to an account, hackers publish links to phishing projects almost immediately. The slow response from Twitter support leaves many of these fraudulent messages for hours or even days,” ZachXBT emphasized.
As an example, he cited a post on OpenAI CTO Mira Murati’s page. The tweet was viewed by more than 76,000 people within about an hour.