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Over the past few weeks, a group of scammers have taken over eight Twitter accounts belonging to prominent figures in the cryptocurrency space to promote phishing scams.
In a Twitter thread dated June 9, ZachXBT reported that it had uncovered several “chain-linked” wallets that are associated with phishing scams promoted by recently hacked accounts.
“While most of these attacks were the result of a SIM swap, it appears that other accounts were potentially stolen using the panel [администрирования Twitter]”, — said ZachXBT.
Over the past few weeks we have seen 8+ account takeovers connected to the same group of scammers as evident by how their addresses are linked on-chain.
I hope TwitterSafety?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow">@TwitterSafety each attack closely as they have resulted in almost seven figures stolen. @miramurati… pic.twitter.com/ypnqyb5oNy
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) June 8, 2023
The accounts belong to figures such as Pudgy Penguins founder Cole Wilman, NFT DJ and collector Steve Aoki, and Bitcoin Magazine editor Pete Rizzo.
Ironically, gold proponent and ardent cryptocurrency hater Peter Schiff also witnessed his account being hacked to promote a dubious tokenized gold link on Decentralized Finance.
“I hope Twitter Safety thoroughly investigates each attack as they resulted in nearly seven figures being stolen,” ZachXBT said, adding that:
“When a scammer gains control of a Twitter account, phishing scams are posted on Twitter almost immediately. Twitter support’s slow response times resulted in some of these tweets staying connected for hours and even days.”
The blockchain sleuth urged people to use a security key rather than opt for SMS-based two-factor authentication.
Another account hack flagged by ZachXBT involves OpenAI CTO Mira Murati.
Related: Uniswap Scam Warning: Scammers Impersonate Executives and Create Fake Website
On June 2, members of the cryptocurrency community issued warnings that her account had shared a phishing link promoting a fake ERC-20 token airdrop called OPENAI.
This particular post was on the air for about an hour, viewed 79,600 times and retweeted 83 times before it was taken down. It is noteworthy that the scammers limited the circle of people who could respond to the tweet so that people would not post warnings on it.
At the end of May, Arthur Madrid, co-founder and CEO of the metaverse platform The Sandbox, was also subjected to a Twitter hack in the same style as advertising a fake SAND airdrop.
However, it is not clear if this particular hack is related to the group of hackers identified by ZachXBT.