KuCoin 's Twitter account was hacked, allowing attackers to promote a fake crypto giveaway/scam , which led to the theft of over $22.6k in cryptocurrency.
The cryptocurrency exchange has promised to fully compensate victims for all verified losses caused by the breach of its official Twitter account, and it also assures that all assets user on the platform remain completely safe.
See also: APC warns of critical RCE flaws in UPS software
Although the account was only compromised for 45 minutes, the crypto exchange says that was enough time for followers to make 22 transactions involving Bitcoin and Ethereum, which allowed the scammers to steal $22,600.
“As of 02:00 on April 24 (UTC+2), we have identified 22 transactions, including ETH/BTC related to the fake activity, totaling 22,628 USDT,” KuCoin said on Twitter about the incident.
“To prevent further harm to users, we are currently reviewing and blocking suspicious addresses,” the company said.
Some KuCoin users pointed out on social media that the crypto giveaway scam was quite convincing following the platform 's usual promotions , so it was easy to be fooled.
The malicious giveaway was hosted on “kucoinevent[.]com,” which supposedly gave away 5,000 Bitcoin and 10,000 Ethereum to some lucky winners to celebrate the platform reaching 10 million users.
See also: Anonymous Sudan: Ben Gurion Airport and Israel Electric Corporation sites attacked
The giveaway scam invited all users to participate by sending any amount and receiving double the amount in return. The scammers said that all individuals were eligible to participate, even those who did not have a KuCoin account.
As is common in these types of scams, the scammers posted fake user confirming the validity of the gift/giveaway to convince visitors who might have been more hesitant.
Affected users should contact KuCoin's support team at “support@kucoin.com” and ignore all advice or recommendations from other communication channels.
The company promised to implement additional security and said it was working closely with Twitter to determine the attack and how the fraudsters managed to compromise a verified account despite multiple protections in place.
Scammers are always looking for new ways to make money and have figured out that hacking official Twitter accounts belonging to crypto exchanges (like KuCoin) or other well-known companies can lead to quick revenue, as posts from official handles look trustworthy and are therefore more likely to fool many people.
Earlier this year, a hacker compromised the Twitter account of cryptocurrency trading platform Robinhood and promoted a fake token (“RBH”) that people were invited to buy for $0.0005 each.
In September 2022, a similar incident affected the Twitter account of the CoinDCX, with attackers promoting fake XRP (Ripple) ads.
See also: Mac App Store: Fake ChatGPT apps in the app store
You should be very careful with these kinds of crypto giveaways or other offers that seem too good to be true. A reliable method to confirm if an offer is real is to check for similar posts across a company and official website. If it’s everywhere then it’s probably real. But if you only find it in one place then it’s probably a scam.
The crypto market is constantly growing and offers many advantages for investors. However, there are risks as there are many scams related to cryptocurrencies. It is important to be careful and know how to protect yourself.
Source: www.bleepingcomputer.com
