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Over the past few weeks, a group of scammers have hijacked more than eight Twitter accounts belonging to prominent figures in the crypto space to promote phishing scams. According to blockchain sleuth ZachXBT, the group has stolen roughly $1 million worth of cryptocurrency so far.
In a June 9 Twitter thread, ZachXBT outlined that he had uncovered several wallet “links on chain” linked to phishing scams promoted by the recently hacked accounts.
ZachXBT said, “While most of these attacks were the result of SIM swaps, it appears that other accounts were potentially stolen with (Twitter admin) panels.”
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen 8+ account takeovers linked to the same group of scammers, which is evident in how their addresses are linked on-chain.
I hope @TwitterSafety Examines each attack closely as they result in the theft of approximately seven figures. @miramurati, pic.twitter.com/ypnqyb5oNy
— zachxbt (@zachxbt) June 8, 2023
The accounts belong to figures such as Puddy Penguins founder Cole Willeman, DJ and NFT collector Steve Aoki, and Bitcoin Magazine editor Pete Rizzo.
Strangely, Peter Schiff, a gold supporter and ardent crypto hater, also had his account hacked to promote a dubious link related to tokenized gold in decentralized finance.
ZachXBT said, “I hope Twitter security investigates each attack closely as they resulted in approximately seven figures being stolen.”
“Once the scammer gains control of a Twitter account, phishing scams are tweeted out almost immediately. Slow response times from Twitter support result in some of these tweets being up for several hours and even days.
Blockchain Spy urges people to use security keys instead of opting for SMS-based two-factor authentication.
Another account hack exposed by ZachXBT involved Meera Murati, CTO of OpenAI.
Connected: Uniswap Scam Alert: Fraudsters impersonate officials and create fake websites
On June 2, members of the crypto community warned about his account sharing a phishing link promoting a fake airdrop for an ERC-20 token called OPENAI.
This particular post was live for almost an hour and was viewed 79,600 times and retweeted 83 times before it was taken down. Specifically, the scammers restricted tweet replies to prevent people from being alerted.
In late May, Arthur Madrid, co-founder and CEO of metaverse platform The Sandbox, was also subject to the same style of Twitter account hack, which saw the promotion of a fake SAND airdrop.
It is unclear whether this particular hack is linked to the group of hackers identified by ZachXBT.
magazine: $3.4B Bitcoin in a Popcorn Tin – The Story of the Silk Road Hacker
